Greetings From The Pepper Man!

[Mitzi]

Hi, we grew Aji White Fantasy last year and had no problems with it's growth or fruit, although it was on the late side to mature. We picked when the pods were cream coloured, in September, and the taste was not amazing. And there was no heat at all, or very little, as you describe. That's how they are supposed to be. You'll have to test them yourself to see how ripe they are and whether they are ready yet. Some people like to harvest earlier, and some later, depending on individual aesthetic, flavour or heat requirements.

We decided it wasn't worth growing the Aji White this year though as it was too late maturing and didn't produce a lot of pods considering the size of the plant. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot worse peppers out there to grow, but there is certainly a lot better ones too. The Trinidad Perfume is a better option in my opinion. Similar shape, but yellow in colour. And a better taste. A lot better.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to respond. I'm not sure whether I'll try Trinidad Perfume or not because I wasn't actually aiming to grow a "no heat" pepper. I went for the White Fantasy because of its amazing appearance and I just assumed that it would have some heat. My plant has loads of pods on; I don't have any complaints over the productivity, just the taste and the difficulty judging maturity.

[The Pepper Man]

Interesting! Why do you count your chillies and not go on weight? I work on weight even with my mere 63 plants. I've harvested just over 6kg already this year.


Don't know what you're growing, but it doesn't sound like a basket of fire.

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At no stage are a basket of fire pods green. I find them one of the earliest maturing. Even compared to padron or jalapeño. Heavy and long cropping plants. I love them.

When I said the number of chillies we have picked, I was just giving a rough idea to give perspective. It's a lot easier to state numbers than weight in my opinion, given some chillies can weigh 10 x as much as others. We'll probably start weighing next year.

Anyway, regarding the Basket of Fire - I found them to be a light lime green colour, almost grey during the early stages, with streaks of purple, before maturing into yellow, then orange and finally red. Just my own observations though. Different packets of seeds could have different variations, depending what plant they were sourced from. There's lot of variables.

The ones I have are definitely Basket of Fire. They are also nowhere near as quick maturing as the Jalapeno Early or Padron. I was picking those two by the masses 6-7 weeks ago, whereas the Basket of Fire pods are still not ready yet. Or at least 99% of pods aren't ready yet. We do have several reddish pods. It's definitely a lot later than some of our other varieties though.

Here are a few of our Basket of Fire's that we have this year. Our plants do look relatively similar, just not as matured yet. Maybe yours were started earlier. We started ours from seed in late March.

[Small pumpkin]

When I said the number of chillies we have picked, I was just giving a rough idea to give perspective. It's a lot easier to state numbers than weight in my opinion, given some chillies can weigh 10 x as much as others.

Obviously

Anyway, regarding the Basket of Fire - I found them to be a light lime green colour, almost grey during the early stages, with streaks of purple, before maturing into yellow, then orange and finally red. Just my own observations though. Different packets of seeds could have different variations, depending what plant they were sourced from. There's lot of variables.

Basket of fire are F1 so there shouldn't be any variation.

We started ours from seed in late March.

Much later than I started all my plants from seed. Which I find surprising for professionals that are going to be selling plug plants.

I think we know enough about you now. So let's move this discussion to chillies - growing and overwintering 2018. I've already posted a link for you in a previous comment.

[veggiechicken]

Well a farm by definition is 'an area of land that is devoted primarily to agriculture processes, with the primary objective of producing food and other crops'. So there is no actual definition regarding the size of the land in order to constitute it a 'farm'.

But to put it into perspective, we have around 300 chilli plants in total this year, on our plot of land, and have cropped around 1,500 chillies already (roughly). By the end of October, we expect to have picked over 5,000 chillies, as the vast majority of our pods are just readying up now. September will be a very busy month. October too. Many chillies are not even picked, due to the sheer numbers that we have.

As I said previously, we are not a commercial chilli farm at present. We are involved in the palms & exotics business, but are taking steps this year, to branch out into the chilli business next year, with plants and plugs available this coming spring.

Regards

Thanks Pepper Man for explaining that. You have an interesting range of plants (palms, cacti and exotics as well as chillies) and I wish you every success with your business.
You've even tempted me to try growing Trinidad perfume next year. This will be only the 3rd time I've attempted to grow chillies as they really do "scare" me. I blame it on all the macho types who want to eat the hottest in the world!! Perhaps you or one of the Vine's other chilli growers could breed a "Chilli for wimps" for me.