Garden Ideas: Grow a Few Hot Peppers to Spice Things Up

I was never one of those people who could just take a big bite out of a hot pepper, chew it up, swallow it, and never shed a tear. I prefer to eat things that don't bite back. I was forced to chomp half a habanero once, however, as part of a freshman hazing incident during high school. I survived, but only after washing down the bite of hot pepper with about a gallon of cold water. Still, I do enjoy flavoring some soups with a bit of hot pepper when I'm cooking, so I can appreciate the importance of adding some different kinds of pepper plants to the backyard vegetable garden.

Besides the culinary value that these spicy little gems can offer, the plants themselves are very colorful. Most are allowed to turn to their familiar red, orange, or yellow colors before harvesting, and the bright colored hot pepper set against their green foliage is like having another flowering plant to highlight your garden.

As one might imagine, there are several main varieties from which to choose, and some are obviously hotter than others. The garden seed catalog companies usually feature different hybrids, with new selections coming out every year. A few old standards, however, tend to be perennial favorites with hot pepper growers, and show up in the back yard (and the kitchen) almost every gardening season.

1. Jalapeno Hot Peppers. This familiar hot pepper is probably the most widely-used kind, is fairly easy to grow, and is in the medium heat range. (I could describe the amount of heat in terms of Scoville Units, which identifies the amount of capsaicin contained by any particular variety of hot peppers. But for simplicity, we'll just say the jalapeno is about half-way up the "how-hot" scale.) Jalapenos are great for pickling, for building nachos, and for adding to home-made salsa recipes.

2. Anaheim Hot Peppers. For those who may prefer a slightly milder pepper, Anaheims are good additions to the garden. Quite popular as the pepper used to make a chili relleno, and as a spicy addition for some soups and stews, the Anaheim is a meaty, six-inch garden fruit that is most often grilled and skinned before it is used in cooking.