SWEET

I’m always up for talking, growing, & eating peppers!

Let’s get something clear. I’m a Gemini. I don’t pay close attention to all the signs, but I sure know that I check off the list for all things Gemini. My split personality loves flowers and peppers. It was kicked off by a love of tomatoes, which I still love and grow, but the excitement came by the wild swing in flavor/personality of peppers. The list has gotten as high as 100 varieties, and it’s down to 70 varieties this year. There’s some you’ll never see at The Pittsboro Farmers Market because we strictly grown them for our seasonings , hot sauce companies, or local chefs. However, you’ll be excitedly blown away by all the choices you have at the peek of pepper season at market.

2023 PEPPER LINE UP

SORTED BY SWEET / MILD / HOT

King of the North - Classic red bell pepper

Carmen - Sweet, thin skin and thick wall, great to snack on

Ashe County Pimento - Incredibly sweet, thick flesh pimento. Great raw or cooked/roasted.

Ferenc Tender Paprika - Very sweet paprika type from Hungary that has not heat. Great for salads, roasting, stufing and seasoning.

Habanada - Floral and fruity. No heat like the Habanera

Jimmy Nardello - Sweet flavor and soft skin. Use it any way: grill, slice, stuff!

Leysa - Flesh is very thick and juicy. great for roasting, salads, stuffing, salads, pickling and sauces

Mammi Huber's Stuffing - Small peppers that are great for stuffing. A personal favorite.

Pimento Elite- Great little stuffers! Heart shaped with blunt ends and thick walls.

Pippins Golden Honey - Very sweet & a beauty

MILD

Aji Dulce - Tropical sweetness, smokey undertones, and zesty flavor.

Aji Dulce Yellow - Citrusy and fruity. Great for marinades, stews, and mild salsas, especially fruit based salsas.

Aji Panca - Berry sweetness and a slightly rich smoky flavor, good for BBQ sauce

Anaheim - Flavor is sweet, tangy and almost smoky flavors. Great in salsa, soups, casseroles, and more!

Apple Crisp - From South America. Crisp and crunchy with a. faint apple flavor, great for making a mild salsa or sauce. Remove seeds, they are bitter. An extra hot summer will raise the heat level.

Arroz con Pollo - Popular Cuban seasoning pepper, smoky flavor. Remove the seeds to remove the heat.

Bola - Spanish pepper that has little to no heat. It's traditionally used as a pepper powder called Pimenton de la Vera used in many Spanish dishes. Flesh is thick enough that you could stuff or pickle.

Brazilian Starfish - Some say it tastes like fruit punch! Use for salad, salsa, sauces, pickling.

Chile Rellenos - Great for any Mexican dish, stuffing roasting, frying, stir-frying, and canning.

Chilhuacle Rojo - Red Mole! Comes from Oaxaca, Mexico. Traditionally, it's dried and used in mole sauce.

Chocolate Mirasol - Smoky fruity tones, best for seasoning. 6-8" long

Corno Di Toro - Italian heirloom, mild to medium heat, depending on growing conditions. Great for roasting, stuffing and saladas

Cristal - Called the "Foie Gras" of the pepper world. Thin walled and have a sweet smoky flavor, some describe the taste as buttery. Prepare by frying, roasting, stuffed, pickled, and sauce.

Cubanelle - Sweet with a touch of heat, with flavors of mellow honey. It's a great Italian frying pepper, also great for salads, stuffing, casseroles, and toppings of sandwhichs and pizzas.

Grenada Seasoning - This pepper is in the habanero family with a fraction of the heat. It's super versatile with fruity flavor and nice citrus tones. It's used mainly in cooking in Grenada, but it'd be great in salsas and hot sauce.

Kapia paprika - Flavor has depth and sweetness, looks like a hatch pepper. Great to roast, stuff, pickle, and dry for seasonings.

Korean Beauty Cucumber - A pepper that looks and even kinda tastes like a cucumber, but with a kick. Sweet but give a strong green pepper kick. They are traditionally eaten with fresh foods by dipping them into Korean sauces like gochujang and doenjang, but they are also excellent for drying to make a powder for other Korean cuisines.

Leutschauer Paprika - Great for drying spices to make Hungarian Paprika

Morita - A mix of fruity and smoke with some mild spice, called the “little blackberry”

Negro De Valle - Seasoning to make Chili Colorado

Numex Garnet - Long, slender 6"-8" inch fruits ripen to a deep red color, used to make paprika with high extractable color.

Padron - Spanish heirloom named after the town it originated. Harvest with they are 1-1.5" long. Typically sauteed in olive oil with a litlte sea salt and eaten as tapas in Spain. 1 in 20 will be hot.

Pasilla Apaseo - Seasoning, Native chile from the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, Just one will change an average sauce, stew or soup into an amazing dish. Use dried or roast green.

Pasilla Bajio-Chilaca - Seasoning, Pasilla is the dried form of the Chilaca chile and means little raisin in Spanish. Use this pepper fresh for enchilada sauce or salsas. Use it dried and powdered in Mexican mole sauces.

Pepperonchini Golden Greek - Hi! Pickle me! I've got just a touch of heat. I'm much sweeter than the Italian pepperonchini.

Poblano Ancho Gigantea - Smoky sweet flavor. Stuff or roast. Ripen to be an Ancho for sauce, soup or seasoning

Santa Fe Chocolate - Smoky sweet flavor. Best for seasonings or sauces.

Venezuelan Tiger - Great roasted or stuffed, or raw. I fell in love with roasting them with olive oil and garlic.

HOT

Aji Amarillo - A staple to Peruvian cuisines. It's bursting with amazing fruity, almost berry-like flavors. Most commonly used in paste form.

Aji Charapita - A small yellow round pepper. It’s great to rub on your food for flavor and heat.

Aji Lemon - Lemony flavor, very productive.

Aji Mango - Mango flavor

Aji Pinapple - Tropical pineapple flavor

Aleppo - Turkish pepper, great for crushed pepper flakes

Calabrian - Peppery flavor with fruity overtones. Best used stuffed, pickled, or in a dish than eaten on their own. Close to cayenne heat.

Carolina Cayenne - Large fruited cayenne, cold hardy and hotter than the typicall cayenne.

Cheiro Roxa - lightly sweet Chinese flavor without the earthy habanero taste, pretty purple color

Chile de Arbol - Bold heat, subtle, natural smoky flavor. Fresh pods pureed into sauce for chips or to season pork filling for tamales. Left whole for oils and vinegars. Toasted and dried and ground for seasonings.

Chili De Comida - This is another pepper vanishing from the southern region of Mexico, due to a shift in what's grown (commercial varieties pay more than native varieties). Like other chiles native to this region they are usually dried and used to make salsas and traditional mole style sauces. They have a good medium heat level that hits quick but fades fast and fruity nutty flavor tones.

Chilhuacle Negro - Classic ingredient for Mole. a bit hotter than cayennes and are especially good roasted over an open flame before making into salsa or mole.

Chiltepin - Wild variety! This and the Pequin pepper are the only two peppers native to North America. Use the green pepper for a milder heat or let them rippen to red for the full heat.

Chimayo - Fantastic red chile flavor, sweet then medium heat. New Mexico pepper.

Czech Black - Less spicy than a jalapeno with a beautiful black color and deep red juice.

Farmers Market Jalapeno - The fruits will exhibit exessive corking. Great for stuffing, pickling, drying, sauces, and salsa. Superior Jalapeno flavor!

February Fire - A fantastic wild pepper varity, very little is documented on this pepper. It can withstand fridged temperatures! Fruit is extremely sweet, juicy, tangy, and has a small tropical flavor. Think spicy candy. Heat is equal to a cayanne.

Free Kristian - Thai pepper, 2-3" long. Great to cook with. Good in salsa, sauces, and dressings. Plants only get 2ft tall, but have high yield.

Gochugaru - Mainly used dried as a chile seasoning for kimchee and other Korean dishes. The flavor is slightly fruity and more complex than other Cayenne types

Guajillo Chile - Holy Trinity of Chiles (along with Ancho and Pasilla). Sweet heat. Important part of mole.

Hatch - Medium Heat. Thick fleshy walls. Delicious traditional flavor. Fantastic roasted.

Hidalgo - Hidalgo is reported to be the home of the original Serrano pepper. It has a quick heat that fades fast. Ideal to use in sauces when red or green.

Jalapeno Lemon Spice - Moderately spicy with citrusy tang. So many culinary possibilities!

Korean Hong-Gochu - Bright red fruits with thin skins are perfect for kimchi and drying down for gochugaru (chili flakes) and gochujang (fermented chili paste). This mild to medium pepper starts out green and turns red ("hong"), and then an even deeper red after drying.

Malawi Piquante Pepper - Great stuffer or pickler, sweet and fruity, pleasant burn that builds.

NuMex Jalmundo - Created over many years by first crossing a Keystone Giant Bell with an Early Jalapeno by the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University.

NuMex Mirasol - Heavy yields of 3" long peppers. Mirasol means "looking at the sun" in Spanish, and probably refers to the fruit being held upright in clusters on the plant.

Nambe Pueblo - Popular Santa Fe chili pepper. Good heat level. Smokey and sweet. Best roasted or stuffed while still green.

Pasilla Mixe - Seasoning. Typically grown in Oaxaca. Dry with Oak. Fruity smokey flavor.

Peachadew - Round and over an inch in diameter. Great for fresh salsa, roasting, frying, sauces, stuffing, soups and stews.

Pimient d'Espelette - Pepper from Basque country that was introduced into France in the 16th centry. Fruity and slightly smoky. Great dried as a powder, stuffed, or fried.

Puya - Comes from the central vallies of Mexico, close to Mexico City. Often sold dried to be ground to powders or mixed with water to make a paste. Closely realted to the chile de arbol and more sweet fruity flavor than guajillo peppers. Great for adding a kick to pizza, soups, or fresh fruity flavor to salsa.

Ristra Cayenne - Long and twisty. Medium-mild heat. Salsa, seasonings, hot sauce.

Santa Fe Grande - Cross of the Hungarian Wax and Fresno pepper. Nice sweetness and a great sub for a jalapeno when less heat is needed. Great for poppers, salsa, pickling, raw.

Sinahuisa - This pepper comes from Maya Ejido Communal farm in the State of Sonora, Mexico. Looks like a serrano but smaller and way more flavor. Rich Sweetness and medium heat. Great for salsa, sauces, and pickling.

Sugar Rush Peach - Sweet tropical flavor and the seeds bring a smokey, complex heat.

Vallero - They are sweeter when green but richer when brown. Used in famous Mexican beef dish called Chile Colorado.

Wa Mae Wo - Crunchy yet fruity and sweet. Decently hot. Fruity yet saltly which makes it ideal to cook with, roast, or chop up and use raw,. Can be dried to make seasoning. Also consider fermenting for pickles.

Zapotec Jalapeno - Old World Jalapeno from Oaxaca, Mexico. It has a high jalapeno heat level

REALLY HOT

Big Sun Habanero - sweet, fiery, and garlic taste, and the heat will stay with you, HOT. SHU 300,000,000-400,000,000

Black Naga - Sweet heat. SHU 700,000-800,000

Carolina Reaper - Developed by a grower, Ed Currie. Sweet and fruity before the heat. SHU 1,641,000

Chocolate Habanero - Lots of flavor and sweetness packed into this pepper! Sweet, rich, smokey flavor - makes it great for BBQ sauces, salsas, and marinades. SHU 300,000-400,000

Congo Black Habanero - Comes from Trinidad. Closely related to the Jamacian chocolate Habanero, but makes larger pods and heat level is a little lower. SHU 125,000-275,000

Datil - Sweet and fruity pepper that orignally came from Spain. Great for jelly, hot sauce, and seasonings. SHU 100,000-300,000

Ghost Pepper - AKA Bhut Jolokia chili, an heirloom varity from India. It was the hotest pepper in 2007. Fruity and berry-like flavors maek them great for hot sauce and salsa. SHU 900,000-1,000,000

Orange Thai - Fruity. SHU 50,000 – 100,000

Paper Lantern Habanero - tropical sweet heat, spicer than most habaneros. SHU 150,000-400,000

Tabasco - It is known for its use in the famous Louisiana pepper sauce when combined with salt and vinegar. SHU 30,000-50,000

T-Rex - 4" long, cross between the Trinidad ouglah and Bhutlah Yellow oeppers. Fruity flavor but ruthless heat. SHU 1,500,000+

Trinidad Scorpion - The heat is strong on this pepper! It feels like your tongue is being stung by a scorpion! Flavor is fruity. Be careful while handling these peppers. SHU 1,200,000-2,009,000

Yellow Caribbean Habanero - Smoky-citrusy flavor. Perfect for making hot sauces, salsas, chutney, marinades, and pickled. SHU 450,000

Wiri Wiri - A variety from Guyana. The flavor is fruity sweet and the burn is quick. Used in Guyana in mango based sauces, salsa and spicing up local rum. SHU 600,000

Yellow Scotch Bonnet - Fruity and sweet with heat that builds, great for Jerk seasoning. SHU 100,000-350,000+