HSL/Heritage varieties - How are yours?

[SarzWix]

Got any pictures? I wangled a couple of seeds off zazen and wondered what they were like?

Umm, no I don't think so, been a bit slack on the piccy front this year They are a slightly different plant to your 'standard' chilli - the leaves are hairy and a bit more more rounded, the flowers are small and purple, and the plants are a bit lower growing, almost sprawling. The chillis are about thumb length, irregular shaped, and sort of... flat? Not totally flat, but not round either. I'm told they have good flavour, not just heat. As they're 'Pubescans' rather than 'Annuum', they should over-winter really well, but our kittens a) shredded the plants & then b) sh*t in the pots...

Our borlotti were pants this year too, made loads of 'plant' but no beans...

Same here - the tower of greenery was huge, and it made a lot of pods too but far too late for the beans to mature & I'm not fond of them as fresh green beans! I'll try something different next year along with the Cranberry Pole beans

[zazen999]

Manda- I'll take some pictures and post later.

[Flummery]

My borlotti were great - got loads of shellies in the freezer. However, I got a heavier crop from the Bird's Egg beans from the HSL. They are very similar in the shelly state but I think I'm just growing a couple of wigwams of Birds Egg next year.

[SarzWix]

Pinched off the Real Seeds website

Alberto's Locoto
Now here's something different. Sometimes known as the Tree Chile or Rocoto, this rare and unusual pepper is unique - it has fuzzy leaves, beautiful purple flowers, and - believe it or not - black seeds. Huge numbers of pretty, 1.5" pendant fruit with thick flesh slowly go from green to deep red.

We grow it as an annual pepper in the usual fashion, and get lots of ripe fruit in October.

(But note you can also grow it as as a perennial, overwintering indoors, & plant can fruit for several years. This is moderately easy - if you can overwinter fuschias or geraniums, you will have no trouble with this beautiful plant. )

We use the fruit to spice up pasta sauces and keep some in vinegar for later in the year. They are pretty hot but it is a warming rather than burning heat, and they have lots of flavour too.

[muckdiva]

Got my HSL Seed List yesterday so bumping this ancient thread as it has some really good feedback on some of the varieties.