hot pepper. Trade Winds says it’s perennial. that’s reason enough for me to grow it.
Harvesting day 364 Cheese Louise
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Comments
cristyn wrote:
Just out of curiosity, what makes these peppers more perennial than other peppers? I thought all peppers were perennial. Are they longer lived? Or hardier?
Posted on 21 Jan 09 (over 4 years ago)
puu wrote:
both. they’re native to higher (and colder) altitudes and often live for ten years or more. the specific name of the common pepper, Capsicum annuum, is a clue that if they’re perennial, they’re only weakly so. I’ve never heard of one living longer than three years, though that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.
Posted on 21 Jan 09 (over 4 years ago)
cristyn wrote:
I had some while I was in grad school, so 6 years. I always thought annuum was a misnomer based on people in cold areas treating them as annuals. Do you know what zone the manzano’s are hardy to? I checked trade winds fruit and it was fairly vague.
Posted on 22 Jan 09 (over 4 years ago)
puu wrote:
Ken Fern says it’s hardy to zone 9, but he also says C. annuum is hardy to zone 9.
was your pepper still fruiting after six years? it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to learn that a botanist named a species poorly, but my general feeling is that C.annuum is weakly perennial. it’s not unusual for them to live for a few years, but it seems to take quite a bit of coddling. Capsicum pubescens, on the other hand, can fruit for fifteen years or more without too much trouble. I should mention that this will be my first year growing the manzanos.
Posted on 22 Jan 09 (over 4 years ago)
cristyn wrote:
I might have coddled it a bit, and I don’t believe it ever actually got below freezing because I was fairly close to the coast. It had fruit on it when I passed it off to another graduate student. Maybe the manzanos don’t need as much pruning to keep them producing? It sounds like they get bigger as well.
Posted on 22 Jan 09 (over 4 years ago)
puu wrote:
yeah, sounds like they get to six feet or more. that’s potentially a lot of really hot peppers.
it may turn out that the only substantial difference is the hairy stems. I guess I’m just a sucker for the word “perennial”. we’ll see.
Posted on 23 Jan 09 (over 4 years ago)
cristyn wrote:
Well, with my peppers I cut them back fairly brutally to encourage new growth. I wonder if it’s something to do with which wood sets fruit? I know it’s relevant with berries, so maybe annums only set fruit on new wood but the manzanos will do it on older branches? Or maybe they’re better at losing the odd twig and generating lots of new growth without human intervention? Or it could just be that they can stand a light frost without being covered with blankets. Clearly some experimentation is called for, but not by me, since I suspect zone 5 is beyond any pepper’s perennial range.
When I become rich and famous, I’ll totally fund some research on this.
Posted on 23 Jan 09 (over 4 years ago)
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