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Post by Laura_in_FL on Jan 13, 2014 14:00:48 GMT -5
I am looking for a mildly hot pepper for rellenos. The anchos I have grown from seed just have not achieved the size I want - not even close. They are only a little bigger than jalepenos. I could be doing something wrong, but then again my bell peppers and Big Jim peppers have been getting to full-size and I treated them the same. So I am stumped on what I could possibly be doing to stunt them. Hopefully it's just that I don't have the right kind of seed.
The grocery store has some nice big unripe green ancho peppers the store that are a great size for rellenos, but they are completely green, with no hint of color change/ripening. So the seeds wouldn't be viable, right?
Also, the grocery store has dried whole anchos - nice big peppers! The store also has plain dried ones (not smoked). Does anyone know whether they do anything in processing that would kill the seeds? Since those peppers look to have ripened before they were dried, I am hoping they will have viable seed.
(Yes, I know I have no assurance that they haven't crossed with any other peppers. But I figure that commercial peppers are usually grown in a field of the same variety, so my odds of the seed coming true should be pretty good. If they come true, they should have the genes to achieve large size.)
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Post by pepperhead212 on Jan 13, 2014 20:12:00 GMT -5
Laura,
I have rarely had good luck with poblanos, or other large peppers, for that matter. Seems that bells, poblanos, and other large ones just don't get up to the size you find in stores. I got some Big Jim seeds to try this year, as well as another type of Ancho, to see if it does any better. Good to hear that the Big Jim does well for you.
I have had seeds germinate from dried peppers, the most recent being Kashmiri. I'm not sure about the seeds from green peppers, however, as I've never tried those. Only one way to find out!
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Post by stratcat on Jan 13, 2014 22:35:51 GMT -5
Hi. As far as seed viability on "green" peppers, I first noticed awful germination rates on my friend's California Wonders. It turned out that he didn't know they ripened red and saved seed from the green ones. Germination went way up with the seed saved from ripe fruit. If you bought some anchos and let them ripen, would the seed "ripen" as well? Are all anchos open pollinated? With respect to dried peppers, once my bass player's order for habaneros somehow didn't get mailed. I had some store-bought dehydrated habaneros laying around and got some seed to him. He couldn't get any of them to sprout; the heat must have done them in. If the peppers are air dried like on a ristra, they should be fine. As Pepperhead said, there's one way to find out.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Jan 14, 2014 13:53:35 GMT -5
If I were having trouble growing bells, I would understand not being able to get anchos up to size. But the bells I grow in the Earthbox are just and big as the ones in the grocery stores. So I don't get why my Anchos are so puny. I don't make tons of rellenos, so it wouldn't bust my budget to just buy peppers occasionally. But my inability to grow a decent ancho has brought out my stubborn streak now. I may try to ripen one of the green Anchos and then save. It might work if I can find one that has a bit of color rather than being 100% green. But they are in a refrigerated case at the store. Does having been refrigerated permanently stop the ripening process? I'll check the package of dried peppers for information on how they were dried. But I don't know whether the package will say anything. Thanks for the feedback!
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