March 2, 2006
The Growing Season
For top nutrition,peppers are hot!
If it’s good nutrition you’re looking for from your vegetable garden, peppers are a powerhouse, high in potassium and vitamins A and C. And if you leave peppers on the plant to mature
from green to a rich color, red or purple or yellow, you’ll have 10 times the vitamin A and double the vitamin C.
That is just one of the reasons the National Garden Bureau has declared 2006 the "Year of the Chile Pepper."
Like so many of our favorite food crops, peppers originated in South America and were among the first cultivated plants in America, along with corn, beans and squash.
Peppers are warm-weather plants that require warm soil and air. They do well in the Rogue Valley most summers. Grow them in full sun for highest production and in a spot that’s protected
from the wind. Shallow root systems and brittle stems make peppers prone to wind damage.
Put healthy transplants into well-drained soil that’s had compost and a balanced organic fertilizer worked in. Then keep peppers fertilized every two to four weeks throughout the growing
season. Peppers need plenty of nitrogen, potassium, calcium and magnesium to grow best.
When peppers begin to blossom, spray them with a mixture of four tablespoons Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) per gallon of water to make them crisp and flavorful.
Cut back on nitrogen in August to promote fruit development. Avoid water stress by watering peppers before the plants have wilted or drooped. The soil should be not too wet nor too dry, but as
uniformly moist as possible.
For the best harvest, pick peppers regularly. A taste test is how to tell when peppers are ready to be harvested. They can be picked at whatever size and stage you prefer, keeping in mind that
both sweetness and hotness increase with maturity.
Ever wonder why some years the hot peppers just aren’t as hot as in others? They get their heat from chemical compounds called capsaicins, which increase during summer heat waves.
Hot-pepper heat levels are rated in Scoville Heat Units. A sweet bell pepper is 0, jalapeņo ranges from 2,500 to 4,000, Tabasco peppers are rated at 60,000 to 80,000 and habaņero peppers are off
the scale!
Chile pepper varieties widely available to the home gardener include Asian/Thai, cayenne, Anaheim, habaņero, hot cherry, Hungarian wax/banana, jalapeņo, poblano (ancho), and serrano.
To grow the hot ones, start off by planting hot varieties. The "heat" can be increased by providing a few favorable conditions.
Peppers cultivated in a hot climate are spicier than those grown at lower temperatures. Also, drought-stricken chilies are hotter than those grown with lots of water, so maintain them on the dry
side. Also keep nitrogen fertilizer to a minimum.
You can boost the heat available to the peppers by mulching with black plastic or growing them in containers on a concrete or brick patio in full sun.
Conversely, if you prefer milder peppers, keep the plants well-watered — but not soggy — and provide afternoon shade. A general rule of thumb is the riper the chile, the hotter it is.
Let your personal taste and the recipe determine when to pick each pepper.
Sams Valley gardener Joyce Schillen is author of "The Growing Season," a book on organic gardening. Her e-mail address is joyceschillen@msn.com.
