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Post by glen on May 18, 2019 21:39:18 GMT -6
Hello everyone! This year someone sent me some sweet habenero seeds. This variety is called Arroz con Pollo which is sold by Baker Creek seed. I got 12 seeds and planted 6 of them in 3 nice sized pots. They have germinated. I noticed that it takes about 10 days to germinate and they come up very weakly and scrawny. At least mine have. The seedlings are now over 2 weeks old and all but 2 are looking fairly good. Two are still real tiny and not growing hardly at all. The biggest seedlings are about an inch tall now. This variety bears normal looking habenero peppers that ripen red. Supposedly if you cut the seed out they are very mild. Almost no heat. Reviewers claim that these peppers are full of flavor without the heat. Many reviewers report the same issues with getting them started. However, if I can get them out of this juvenile stage they should become vigorous.
I have seen other mild habenero peppers for sale online so this is not a new idea. Arroz con Pollo supposedly comes from Cuba. I do not know how long this variety has been around. It seems to be harder at this point to get them started than the local hot habenero's that they have here in Panama. I am very curious to taste these. I could use a mild habenero. I find hot habenero's to be too hot. I would use every single mild habenero I could get. If this plant is as prolific as its hot cousin's that would be neat. Last time I planted hot hab's the plants were loaded all the time.
Has anyone tried mild habenero's?
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Post by macmex on May 19, 2019 5:11:46 GMT -6
I haven't tried them, though I have seen varieties of pepper which are much harder to get started. The Rocoto pepper grows in high cool areas in Peru and Mexico. It has that same characteristic, only I've seed the plants reach 15' in height.
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Post by glen on May 19, 2019 10:42:56 GMT -6
Thanx for the reply. Any information on sweet habenero's and how to grow em, and how to use em in the kitchen will be very interesting. I will post photo's here of my specimans if they ever begin to grow. The Capsaican Chinense species as a whole is a beautiful variety and enjoyable to grow. I would love to have sweet or mild variety's that I have more use for. I already have mild jalepeno peppers. I have a variety called Tam Jalepeno in the garden and you can bet that none of those ever go to waste. Those aren't totally sweet, but they are very mild for a jalepeno.
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Post by glen on May 19, 2019 10:44:40 GMT -6
By the way, those rocoto pepper plants are unusually big? 15 feet tall?
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Post by macmex on May 19, 2019 18:25:46 GMT -6
At least in Central Mexico, where I saw them growing, Rocoto peppers often went up and over gates and even up onto the roofs of houses. I tried to grow them in Oklahoma, but they didn't like our heat.
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Post by glen on May 19, 2019 22:01:20 GMT -6
Well, I am trying to grow sweet Habenero's. I didn't even know that this type of pepper existed. I researched it and found out that there are several different ones out there. The one I have now came from Danita, a new friend of mine. I received 12 seeds. Supposedly the peppers have very rich flavor, without the heat. I am not sure what that exactly means yet and won't until I have an Arroz Con Pollo pepper to try. They look very red on the foto and have that classic habenero or scotch bonnet type of look. I can see by the seedlings that they are Chinense seedlings by the shape of the first true leaves. I planted only 6 of the seeds since I need to have a reserve stash of seed in the event of a catastrophe. The seedlings are growing extremely slow. Some are still very tiny. A couple look like they should survive. If only one survives that will be OK since that will give me a good sized stash of seed for next year. I will have to be very careful with how I treat the seed to make sure I have seed for next season. I do not use any special potting mix to grow my peppers so anything could happen to them. I got my fingers crossed that I get at least one strong plant.
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Post by glen on May 21, 2019 16:30:34 GMT -6
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Post by glen on May 25, 2019 12:37:37 GMT -6
This is another example of a super sweet chile. I beleive this is another habenero derivative. About 3 inches long and about 1 inch wide. Very useable size. I cut one open, very nice strong pepper smell. Zero heat. No traceable heat at all. Peppers full of beautiful seed also which I will trial.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 25, 2019 20:33:14 GMT -6
Glen, Thanks, for posting this new thread about cool peppers that look like hot peppers. I haven't seen any of those 'cooler' tasting varieties you mentioned around here, but I did find some peppers called, "Coolapeno" supposedly, they are heat-less jalapenos. I've planted a couple of them here, just to see what they are like. Only time will tell ... If they turn out as cool as they claim they are, I'll need to pickle some just to mess with my Brother-in-Law. He never reads my posts, so our secret is safe until Autumn.
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Post by glen on May 27, 2019 15:18:33 GMT -6
What I want from a sweet chile is that strong chile smell. They don't all have it. The first example I showed that looks like a scorpion has a very floral smell. The second example has that strong chile smell. No heat in either though. I prefer the second type's flavor. I have both planted in starter pots but I hope the second type germinates. The second type peppers look nicer to me also. As far as coolapeno goes. Those are probably great tasting. However, I do believe it would be hard to beat the Tam jalepeno's for over-all flavor. Tam jalepeno's are spicey. They would be considered mild in the pepper world. But, they do have a little kick to em and they are perfect for folks that want to eat hot peppers but just can't go thru with it. The Tam jalepeno is a proven winner in my book. And, since I am growing tobasco and Cayenne peppers I can add a few of them to my picked jalepeno rings to add heat if I want to.
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Post by glen on Jun 1, 2019 15:27:24 GMT -6
As you know I planted seeds from both variety's of peppers that I showed in foto's above. The first example has germinated like crazy. Those are the fake scorpions. They are the ones with the strong floral smell when you cut them open. The second example has not germinated at all. You never know about seeds when you find em like this. I didn't think the fake scorpion seeds looked that great. But, they just about all have germinated. I plant 4 or 5 in each starter pot and they are just about all up and running. If the other variety comes up also I don't know what I will do with all these plants. As I mentioned before, I am guessing that these sweet peppers are from the Chinense species of peppers. A much more varied species than most people realize. I will keep you updated with foto's later if these seedlings grow well. And, if I can grow these variety's successfully I will probably send some seed to Ron. I am pretty sure Ron will like to try em too.
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Post by glen on Jun 1, 2019 15:28:32 GMT -6
I am having all kinds of problems now with my peppers. I am not having as much rain as you guys are having. However, we are having rain almost every day and overcast weather every day. Super high humidity. Not much sun. Peppers don't like this kind of weather. I am fighting with different deseases that will remain nameless. Some plants are staying healthy. I have to pull up the weak, sick plants. Until the sun comes back, the peppers are going to suffer slow, weak growth plus desease. I planted extra seedlings so I am replacing the dead or dying with new plants. And, keeping my fingers crossed. I normally don't buy medicines for this type of problem. It never works for me. Waste of money. I just keep planting until enough survivors show up. Existing plants are kind of leggy. When the sun comes back things could turn around for me. I am really looking forward to a nice pepper season so I can make some pepper rings in vinegar and some home-made hot sauce. Could be a flop this year.
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Post by glen on Aug 17, 2019 18:50:41 GMT -6
Hello all. I know, this thread is not active. I don't run into sweet habenero's often. Now, sweet habanero is a word I made up to describe these sweet peppers. A Habenero is a particular variety of Hot chili pepper, that is a member of the C Chinense family. I am sure George can describe this variety better than I can. However, when I see these bonnet peppers, I think of the Habenero. In Florida where I am from, the Habenero was the first C Chinense pepper I ever saw. Then I discovered the Scotch Bonnet. I never knew anything more about this family of peppers than that and I thought they were all hot peppers. Well, there is a lot of C Chinense peppers that are not hot. I mean different shapes and sizes. They are not popular. Well, they are not popular in the US. In Panama where I live they are not popular either. We have several types of sweet peppers that are popular. They are the typical grocery store sweet pepper. Occasionally I run into something different. Today I ran in a special sweet pepper that looked kind of like a pumpkin and is red when ripe. Its obviously a bonnet pepper of some type. I am almost sure its a Capsaican Chinense pepper. I bought some from a Supermercado in Chitre. They are cheap, about 10 cents each and are huge. Well, about twice the size of a habanero or a Chombo or a Scotch Bonnet that I normally see. However, sometimes Chombo's are good sized. But, not as big as these. I would say that the new sweet pumpkin peppers are about the size of a golf ball or maybe slightly bigger. I bought only ripe peppers. I cut them open and smelled them. Pungent peppery smell. No floral smell. I don't care for the floral smell anyways. Its not my favorite pepper smell. These have the smell I like. I licked the inside of the pepper to make sure they weren't spicey. Zero heat. Zero on the Scoville scale. Tomorrow the plan is to slice these baby's up and eat them sautéed with some beef and onions. The fresh smell is heavenly and there is no bell pepper on the planet that has this smell baby. I have not actually tasted them but I don't have to. They are going to be top notch. Here are some foto's of this beauty. The grocery store calls this pepper Ajicito. They don't name peppers in the Latino world. Its just called the little pepper. I am going to plant some seed tomorrow. I have some small pots ready for them. I also have plants growing from the other sweet Chinense peppers shown on this thread. Some of those plants are blooming now. I hope you enjoy the photo's.
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Post by macmex on Aug 18, 2019 4:18:07 GMT -6
Glen, some of your comments about Panama truly remind me of Mexico. I remember picking up a distinct looking tomato in the market and asking the vendor (in Spanish, of course), "What kind of tomato is this?" I was hoping for a variety name of some kind of account about how this particular tomato was grown in "such and such" a village. In stead, looking at the Gringo (me) and probably thinking that my Spanish sounded better than it actually was, the vendor responded, slowly, carefully enunciating the words, "It's a red tomato." So, I tried another word for "type," and asked again. To which the vendor slowed down even more and slowly stated, "I t ' s a l i t t l e r o u n d r e d t o m a t o."
Apparently you're living in the midst of a rich genetic trove of c. chinese peppers and the people hardly recognize the treasure which they have. I believe this is pretty common. In other parts of the world folk would be so thrilled to get hold of that seed!
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Post by glen on Aug 18, 2019 12:55:41 GMT -6
George, I am going to be sending seed to either you or Ron. You guys can try this seed if you want. I think its a good one to plant because you will get a late harvest of some nice peppers. They have a very excellent smell when sliced open. They are fairly thick walled. Bercy has them diced up with onions and garlic and she is sauteeing marinated beef strips with this new un-named pepper. Yes, there are many different types of peppers here. I don't see them that often because they are not popular in my area. When I see them I buy them. They are far superior in flavor. I planted 4 this morning in small pots. This is a good time for me to plant them. I am half way thru the rainy season. In December, when the rainy season is finished, these plants will have nice size to them. They should do well. I am still learning how to to take care of peppers so they live more than one season. I have a named sweet chinense outside called Arroz con Pollo. I planted them on April 24th. They are covered over in blooms now and making peppers. They are bonnet peppers and ripen red and are smaller than this new variety. I have had zero problems with Arroz Con Pollo peppers so far. No desease. No pests. I am now on the look out for some light hair netting type of material that I can use to isolate blooms. Once I locate that material I can start the process of saving seed. I am afraid to freeze seed now although I need to find out if I can freeze my seed. If I leave the seed on the drying tray too long the seed quickly dies and is unuseable. I have to dry it in about 10 days, get it in a plastic bag and into the fridge. Its really hard to work with pepper seeds in my harsh climate.
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