Different Types Of Peppers

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Beginning Gardening is the most fun loving activity. Think of the different types of peppers you can grow in one small patch!

Seed companies break the peppers we grow down into two categories: hot and sweet. The hot types include Cayenne, Jalapeno and Anaheim. Examples of sweet peppers are Bell and Pimiento. Banana and Cherry peppers come both sweet and hot.

Anaheim

These four to ten inch long blunt ended pods are green in colour, are midly hot and turn red when they ripen. These peppers are often called New Mexico chilis because of their long history of being grown in that region. Popular varieties include ‘Anaheim TMR’, ‘NuMex Big Jim’ and ‘NuMex Sunrise’.

Banana

Long, thin-walled pepper that ripens to red or yellow; often used in the immature pale green stage. The hot type is called Hungarian Wax. Varieties include ‘Sweet Banana’ and ‘Giant Yellow Banana’.

Bell

Characterized by large, blocky fruits with three or four lobes, these peppers are about three inches wide and four inches long and they taper slightly. Starting off as dark green to yellow-green, most turn red when fully ripe, although some turn yellow or orange, and even brown or purple. Bell peppers are regularly harvested and used when green. There are around 200 varieties in the Bell group. ‘California Wonder’, ‘Northstar’ and ‘Ace’ belong to this group.

Cayenne

These are hot Chile peppers. The fruit in this variety are very thin and pointed with a slight curve, and are between two to eight inches in length. The fruit, most all of them are green and turn red when they ripen. They can be used in either the green or the red stage. Examples are ‘Large Thick Cayenne’, ‘Super Cayenne’ and ‘Long Red Cayenne’.

Cherry

Fruits are cherry or globe-shaped with three cells. They grow on long, upright stems, usually above the leaves of the plant. They are usually orange to deep red when harvested and may be sweet or hot, large or small. Varieties include ‘Cherry Sweet’ and ‘Large Cherry’.

Jalapeno

One of the most well known hot peppers. The three-inch-long by one-inch-wide conical fruits can be eaten green or red and their mildly hot flavor is popular on nachos, salsas and pickled. Varieties include ‘Jalapa’, ‘Jalapeno M’ and ‘TAM Jalapeno’.

Pimiento

These are thick walled fleshy peppers that are more sweet than hot. The fruit are three to four inches wide cones which are slightly pointed and grow to a length of three to four inches. Pimientos are red when ripe, and they’re most commonly used at this stage. Popular varieties include ‘Super Red Pimiento’ and ‘Pimiento L’.

Ornamental Peppers

Ornamental peppers are a true member of the Capsicum family like the peppers that are grown for food outdoors. This plant needs lot of moisture and sun to produce an abundant crop of small cone shaped fruit. These plants, which you can usually buy through a seed catalog, at a florist shop or even in a supermarket, are very pretty when the miniature peppers start to ripen. Often you’ll have a plant simultaneously splashed with green, yellow, red and orange because each pepper ripens at its own pace.

These mini peppers are edible, but they are hot! You can use them in cooking or for attractive and different hors d’oeuvres along with crackers and a dip. Just be careful not to confuse them with a plant called the Jerusalem or Christmas Cherry. Instead of the cone-shaped peppers, these plants have round, reddish-orange fruits when ripe and they are not edible.

The Name Game

Chile, Chili, Cayenne, Jalapeno - By Any Name, It’s Hot!

Names for hot peppers can get confusing. Some people call them chili peppers, cayennes or jalapenos, and others just call them hot peppers. What are they really called? Is each of these names a separate category?

The confusion started in Mexico. Chile is the Spanish word for pepper. To specify which type of pepper, Mexicans would add the word for the particular type after the name Chile. Therefore, Chile dulce would be sweet pepper, Chile jalapeno would be the Jalapeno pepper, and so on. When Chile found its way into this country, different meanings were given to it in various parts of the country, and it even acquired a new spelling. In the Southwest and West, Chile is used to refer to the Anaheim pepper. In other parts of the South and the Southeast, and still other sections of the country, Chile refers to any type of hot pepper. Some folks refer to all hot peppers as cayennes or jalapenos. And all over the country we have different Chile con carnes, which are pepper based.

Chile and chili are not varieties of peppers, but only words used to describe that the pepper is hot. So whether you say Chile or chili, cayenne or jalapeno, and whether the word describes just an Anaheim pepper or all hot peppers, watch out! That pepper is hot!

To learn more about growing peppers visit Beginning Gardening

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