After many years of growing chillies I can’t help but have my favourites and every Spring I find myself planting the same varieties in prime spot of our raised beds.
We still grow new and experimental varieties each year but they are usually grown in pots on the side and are judged on how well they grow (after a bit of neglect!) and taste as to whether they will make it into the raised beds the following year.
Every bit of space is used in our beds and priority is given to sweet peppers which do not perform anywhere near as well as chillies do in containers. We get such good harvests from our raised beds that we are able to preserve our peppers and have them all year round, making them one of our foods that we no longer buy from the supermarket!
I don’t really have a great spice tolerance and still consider myself to be in ‘training’ as I have been for the last decade, though I have grown many chilli varieties for their shockingly high scoville heat levels (including the notorious Carolina Reaper!) but honestly find they really are more painful than tasty, and often depend on a really hot summer and long growing season to get a decent harvest, even with a polytunnel here in the UK.
As a passionate gardener and grower, I am judging the chilli for its growth habit, ability to thrive in our environment and most importantly of course, the flavour! We absolutely love to transform our peppers into delicious hot sauces, pickles, jams and relishes, so these are my top five chillies that I wouldn’t ever be without..
1. Jalapeño
By far one of the easiest chillies to grow from seed and get a decent harvest from here in the UK, this pepper in the Capsicum ‘Annum’ species grows into a small to medium sized bush that is fairly compact, making it low maintenance and ideal for growing in a container. It is early flowering, with the fruits generally being harvested green (although they can be left to ripen red and usually gain more heat) they don’t take as long to ripen so you’ll be harvesting Jalapenos before most other peppers.
It is Liams all time favourite pepper and every year he turns them into various pickles which we always have available in the pantry ready to spread all over pizzas or layer between some smoky bacon and melted cheese in a toasted brioche bun!Â
We also love to smoke our jalapeños transforming them into the famous ‘chipotle’ flavour which is perfect for using in my Mexican themed slow cook dinners such as beef brisket cooked in beer, pulled pork cooked in homemade apple cider vinegar or simply added to a side of fresh guacamole! It has a mild – medium spice level and due to its global popularity and cultivation, the seed is readily available to purchase online from a reputable seed provider at a very reasonable price!
2. Rocoto
pepper is also know as the ‘Apple Chilli’
Another South American Chilli, the Rocoto Pepper produces great big crunchy, juicy fruits much like a small bell pepper but not be confused with one as they rate much higher on the scoville level as a medium to hot chilli pepper.
These are one of my all time favourite peppers for making homemade hot sauce and after years of experimenting, we now use the majority of these for a super flavourful, hot and sticky, sweet chilli sauce made with local honey!
It quickly became one of my favourite chillies to watch grow in the garden as it is an unusual plant with its deep purple flowers and soft, slightly fuzzy foliage. It grows into a large but evenly growing bush with a strong and sturdy, self supporting habit.
In the Capsicum ‘Pubesense’ family, it does not cross pollinate with other species in the Capsicum plant family such as ‘Chinense’, ‘Frutense’ or ‘Annum’Â so the seed can be collected from without the risk of cross pollinating with other varieties nearby, so you only have to purchase the seed once!
It is a chilli that requires a long hot season so is best started early but is totally worth the wait and due to its rare tolerance to colder temperatures, it is always the last one standing in November when all others have given in!
Capsicum ‘Pubescens’ which translates as ‘hairy’ which refers to the hairy foliage and has distinctive black seeds inside!
As well as using them fresh, we like to dehydrate these chillies whole and store them in sealed jars in the pantry for use all year round. They are so spicy that only one is required to give a real good kick to any dish!
3. Chocolate Habenero
Purely based on flavour, this is my all time favourite chilli pepper and it really does taste incredible. It is even spicier than the regular Habanero which means it does also need a long, hot growing season in order to get fully ripe fruits but it is so worth your patience as is has a very distinctive, smoky flavour that can transform any dish without the need for actually smoking the chillies like you do with jalapeños to make chipotle or having to splash out for liquid smoke!
It is a thin skinned chilli which is great for drying, and grows on a large, very ornamental plant and due to its extremely high Scoville heat score it can be used sparingly, making it go a long way in the kitchen. It is a wonderful ingredient for achieving that classic BBQ flavour without having to cook on the BBQ!
The fruits don’t contain a huge amount of seed but due to its popularity it is highly cultivated and available to purchase fairly easily, and in my opinion, worth every single penny of its slightly higher price!
4. Biquinho
Another South American Chilli pepper (can you tell what my favourite cuisine is?!) also known as ‘Little Beak’ and a top performing chilli for growing in containers. It is the first to flower and ripen fruit and does so well that I never even need to plant it in the raised beds.
It is a wonderfully ornamental plant and can be easily grown on a sunny windowsill for those who don’t even have any garden space!
As well as being very decorative and prolific, it is also one of the mildest chilli varieties, so is a brilliant choice for those who enjoy growing peppers but don’t have any spice tolerance! They are more sweet, aromatic and very fruity in flavour. They also have a wonderful crunch making them enjoyable to eat straight from the plant and pickled for eating later!
With the fruits being so tiny, they do also ripen quickly, turning from lime green to yellow and then to orange, and if not picked they can start to go soft so be sure to check in on your Biquinhos and harvest regularly!
The seed is available in yellow and red but they seem to taste the same so we tend to grow more yellow ones as they’re a bit more ornamental, especially once in a jar. They are a little pricey but an excellent choice especially for those who are not able to grow seed extra early as they do not need a long growing season like most other chillies.
5. Cayenne
A very classic chilli which is one of the easiest to grow from seed and early to set fruit. It grows ok in containers so great for those who are limited in this way but due to the heavy fruits and prolific nature, it is best grown in our raised beds where it can spread its roots and grow into a larger, strong plant that will support lots more fruits without the risk of snapped branches.
It is famous for being ground into powder but of course, a large amount would be needed to produce a single jar of Cayenne spice powder so we leave that to the pros and tend to dry ours out whole and string them up in the kitchen or sliced in halves and stored in jars to preserve the flavour and aromatics!
We love this chilli as it has a mild to medium spice level and can be used as a basic green or red chilli in cuisines all around the world.
Being super popular worldwide, there are lots of varieties including some ‘dwarf’ types cultivated especially for growing in pots and others with long, skinny, decorative fruits making them a favourite chilli to be grown purely for their ornamental value. The fruits produce a lot of seed making them readily available to purchase and affordable too.
So those are my top five Chilli Peppers that find their way into our garden every year without fail, to read about how we grow them and our top tips for a great harvest, carry on reading!
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How we successfully grow Chilli Peppers here in the UK
The secret to growing epic chilli peppers is actually not a secret at all and is based on the ability to provide sun and heat. But here in the UK we can’t rely on there actually being a lot of sun even with a polytunnel so some years we actually don’t get great harvests, and other years we do! Of course, feeding your soil and watering sufficiently, as well as starting your seeds early enough are the most important things you can do to help achieve that harvest.
Getting the best start
If you’ve been following our blog you’ll see that when we first started growing chillies we did not have a Polytunnel or a heated seed bed and we were very limited by our seed starting setup. Although we still used the underneath heat method with heat mats and a good old windowsill, We didnt have space or budget for grow lights which are commonly used and we could only then grow them on in the raised beds in our old greenhouse which had lost half of it’s glass and therefore didn’t get much warmer than outside, but it did protect them from heavy rain, snow and brutally cold winds. As we are up on the side of the valley in an exposed site, our friends and family in town were getting better results growing our homegrown plants in containers on their patios, so we really couldn’t wait to get our polytunnel up and running so we could really get growing!
Some people tend to use horticultural fleece over their seedlings but we prefer to use the Root!t propagation lids so that we can create high humidity which really helps pepper seeds to germinate. Small, electric windowsill propagators work well too and come with a lid for this reason.
Installing the Polytunnel and a Building a Heated Seed Bed was quite the upgrade and we went the whole hog by building deep raised beds that we could fill up with the best soil and we do this ritually every year by adding worm castings from our wormery as well as leaf mould collected in Autumn and composted manure from our Chickens and Ducks!
The peppers seedlings stay on under heat until they have a few leaves and a good root system, and then are potted up into 10cm wide pots and grown on in a sunny position until after the first frost in early May, when they are then planted into their final positions.
We usually start harvesting as early as July but the majority of hot pepper varieties are being harvested in August all the way through to November.
- My top five favourite chilli peppers to grow from seed every year!
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Homegrown and Hopeful 