Quote Originally Posted by bacpacker View Post
Sounds like a nice harvest AK. Couple questions for you. What are the Pequin peppers? Are the hot or mild, bell or banana type? Are they heirlooms or hybrid? If heirloom, would you be interested in swapping some seed for something I have? I'm always looking for some new heirloom peppers to try out. Never heard of those before.
. Pequin is a pepper about the size of a holly berry, or a pea. They're a little hotter than a jalapeño. These are a perennial bush type pepper, I got them from a guy who sells jelly at the farmers market probably 3 years ago. He makes Pequin pear jelly on a large scale, and since they aren't commercially available, he grows his own plants. These plants are heirloom as far as I can tell, I've never seen seed for them. The reason they aren't commercially available is they take FOREVER to pick when they're producing. We usually harvest around first freeze, and we harvest both green and red (fully ripe) I'd say it takes 30-45 minutes to harvest 1/2 a cup because some are the size of a BB. Our total crop annually is probably a pint jar maximum. That being said, it takes 1-1/2 tbsp to make 16 jars of pineapple Pequin, or pear Pequin jelly, so it goes a long way. We winterize them by cutting them down about 2 inches above ground and mulching them with wood mulch. I murdered the ones I had in the ground by not uncovering them after last frost this year, and not watering them enough, they never came back, so I had to go find the guy I got them from and get 3 more. I've got them in a whiskey barrel now, so I'll be covering them in a 6 mil clear plastic tent and mulching this year to see if they recover better next spring. I'd be happy to send you some dried peppers, and a few fresh ones just to make sure you get a viable set of seeds. I'd say there at 3-4 seeds per pepper. They're itty bitty, but they pack a punch, my kid eat them off the bush, and then suffers for 30 minutes while his friends laugh at him.