How and What to Grow in a Kitchen Garden of One Acre (10th Ed)/Peppers
PEPPERS.
The seed should be sown about the middle of March, in the hotbed, if wanted for summer use, and as soon as the nights are warm they should be planted out. They can be sown in the open ground if the fruit is not wanted for use before fall. As they are used in preparing various kinds of pickles, etc., it would probably be the better plan to plant some at both times. When about six inches high, they should be transplanted to the rows where they arc to fruit, and should be set about two feet apart in the row. Where room is scarce, I usually set two pepper plants between each hill of cantaloupes, as they grow well above the vines and are not at all in the way, while having the ground shaded from the hot sun by the vines of the melons, the surface being kept cool and moist by their broad leaves, is of great advantage to the peppers. In choosing varieties, those kinds having the mildest flavor and handsomest appearance should be selected.
VARIETIES OF PEPPERS.
Burpee’s Ruby King.—This variety produces the handsomest, and at the same time the largest and mildest peppers that I have ever grown; one specimen this season being six inches long and over ten
inches in round circumference. When ripe the fruit is a beautiful, bright, ruby-red color, and the flavor is mild and pleasant, being much milder than in any other variety of red pepper.
Burpee’s Golden Upright.—In this variety the fruit grows in a different manner from any other large pepper that I have ever seen; it grows upright on the fruit stems, instead of pendulous. The fruits are large and handsome, being about four to five
BURPEE’S GOLDEN UPRIGHT PEPPER.
inches in length, and are of rich golden yellow tinged with red. In taste it is as mild as the Ruby King—the two making a very fine contrast when used together.
Bull Nose and Golden Dawn are the finest of the older kinds, but do not compare with the two above given, either for size or mildness of flavor.
Red Cluster.—This is one of the finest varieties that I have ever grown; it is low and bushy in growth, and is covered with a profusion of thin, round peppers, about three inches in length and one-quarter inch in diameter at the base, tapering to a long, sharp point. When ripe, the fruit is a brilliant coral red, and a plant covered with fruit looks like
RED CLUSTER PEPPER.
some brilliant-foliaged plant that has escaped from the flower garden. It is very hot and pungent in flavor, and an idea of the productiveness can be had from the fact that over twelve hundred were counted on a single plant this last summer.[1]
- ↑ A very distinct and novel variety has just been introduced from China, under the name of Celestial Pepper. The small, nearly heart-shaped fruits are produced in great abundance, growing upright, and are of a beautiful creamy yellow color until fully ripe, when they turn coral red: the plant is handsome enough for the flower garden. Among the largest of the sweet, mild red peppers are Spanish Monstrous and Procopp's Giant, while among the hottest of all peppers is the Long Narrow Cayenne.—Ed.