Peppers - What are your favorites?

following. I have no luck growing bell peppers. They produce very few and very small when i get any at all.

I know a lot of the folks on here like the Shishito.

If you can handle the heat, Reapers are hard to beat. Hot AF, but have a great taste IMO. Great in hot sauces and you can adjust the heat level with sweet additions like honey, carrots, etc. I grow a couple dozen super hots and mainly make hot sauces.

For general cooking for the family I'd avoid any super hots. I'd go with shishitos, or sweet bonnets for something a little different. My sweet bonnets were super productive last year. For slightly spicy variety try out sugar rush peach peppers, cool looking peppers and taste great.

Love me some Garden Salsas, discovered them last year and those are the only ones I'm excited about this year.

I always have a few varieties of bell peppers and usually several varieties of hot to super hot peppers in my garden every year.

I have California Wonder and Chocolate Bell Peppers in the garden so far this year and as for the hot/superhot, there's jalapeno, serrano, habanero and ghost peppers.

The bell peppers will do well even when it gets stupid hot in the N.O. area but you have to be aware of "sun scald" where the peppers develop what looks like burnt spots on the skin from sun exposure. It is best to put some type shade cloth over those plants around mid June.

As for the hot/superhot, they love the heat and produce better from July on for me. It is not unusual to pick dozens of peppers a week off the hot varieties once they start coming in.


And to add this: I would strongly recommend staking your pepper plants. I use those 4 ft. tall metal rods with the small triangular piece welded on the bottom. I drive them about 1 ft. in the ground and tie off the pepper plants as they grow. Sometimes the plants get so loaded with peppers that a good hard rain and some strong winds can knock them over.

You can get the metal stakes at Tractor Supply pretty cheap and they last years. I've had mine for about 5 years now and they are still good to go.

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Following as well. Last year grew ghost peppers that my son wanted to try and they grew like crazy but so got dam hot you couldn't really enjoy them. I was giving away bags every week. Threw some in the freezer to try in my next crawfish boil.

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I've used the superhot peppers to make pepper jelly, hot sauce, dried pepper flakes etc.

For the jelly and hot sauce you need to mix them with milder peppers to kind of offset the heat. You can adjust the heat as you go by trial and error to fit your flavor profile, and once you get it to your liking, I suggest you write the recipe down so you can easily repeat it.

my favorite peppers for frying are Cubanelle (Fontenot pepper) and Gypsie, and cayenne peppers for spice.

Im a basic guy. I love jalapeños.

Shishito and Jimmy Nardello for me.

For ease of growth you can't go wrong with banana peppers.
Jimmy Nardello is a very sweet and tasty pepper.
Pepperoncini's grow great here also and can well.