We will probably not have enough seedlings to sell, but we will offer  lots of fresh grown peppers in the summer, and dried peppers all year! (All through Gilmanton’s Own Market or contact us directly).

We grow over 40 varieties — all heirlooms from around the world, known in their home regions for special dishes using them.

Peppers are amazing creatures. Although supermarkets tend to sell very few kinds — mostly the big “sweet” bell peppers that at best have nice crunch and color but not much taste, many different kinds are found around the world. The differ not just in size, color, and amount of hotness, but also in other qualities of taste. The peppers that are used on Oaxaca for traditional dishes such as mole are different from the ones used in the Basque country or in India or Jamaica or Italy … or anywhere else!

We have had fun searching out seeds from different regions of the world to grow the peppers that are used locally for many different world regional dishes.

We sell some pepper plant starts in the spring, fresh peppers when they ripen — probably no earlier than August, and we sell dried pepper powders all year — all through Gilmanton’s Own Market. they are packed in small vials.  We can also take special orders for larger quantities.

Here is our 2024 list of peppers (as long as they keep cooperating). We will sell peppers as they ripen.  Let us know if you want to be notified about particular varieties.

Sweet or a Just a Wee Bit Spicy

Most of the sweet (or non-hot) peppers available in the supermarket are pretty, but fairly tasteless bell peppers. There are hundreds of varieties of sweet (or not really hot) peppers around the world that have different shapes, colors, and flavors. We grow a good list of choices from around the world.

• Banana:  Mild heat in these popular yellow chill peppers. (They ripen to red.)
• Big Red Sweet: What it sounds like. Thick-walled bell type, deep red when ripe.
• Blot: From Eastern Europe near Russia: Sweet, juicy, no heat.Blotches of bright orange and purple.
• Criolla de Cocina: Beautiful sweet red pepper with strong flavor, from Nicaragua.
• Doux des Espagne:  Beautiful fruits that can be eaten green or red — large, 6-7 inch red peppers introduced into Spanish and southern French markets before 1860. Widely grown in Algeria and Valencia for the Paris markets.
• Gernika:  Basque frying pepper, picked green and fried whole with salt. 6″ long. Nice and sweet when red but often used green.
• Golden Treasure Sweet:  Tasty and sweet Italian heirloom — about 9 inches long. Ripens from green to golden yellow. An Italian frying type that is not commercially available.
• King of the North: Blocky thick-walled crisp bell type ripening to red. No heat.
• Large Sweet Antigua:  Huge sweet red pepper from Guatemala.
• Leysa: Very sweet red thick-skinned Ukrainian pepper with a teardrop shape.
• Liebesaptel (“Love Apple”): Red ruffled pepper with sweet thick flesh from Germany.  Spanish cheese makers have used them to color cheeses and because of their sweetness.
• Melrose:  The Napolitano family brought these peppers from Naples to America with them, grew them, and named them after Melrose Park, where they lived. Eaten young and green or matured to red when they are even sweeter. The story and some recipes here.
• Omarkso Kambe:  Red, heart shaped sweet pepper, nice for stuffing. From Bulgaria.
• Paprika, Ference Tender: A very sweet Paprika type pepper from Hungary — no heat. About 5-6 inches long. Use them fresh or dry them to make sweet Paprika powder.
• Petit Marseillais: A sunset orange, sweet (hint of spice) French heirloom. In France they also pickle them or fry them in olive oil or stuff them. About 5 inches long, 2 inches wide. Great for sautés and other uses.
• Piment de Bresse:  Sweet, somewhat spicy red pepper from Bresse, in France. Up to 5 inches long, ripen from green to red. Used for hundreds of years, there are many recipes available. Also dried and used in cheese.
• Piment d’Espelette:  Grown in the Basque region at east since the early 16th century. Important in the Basque dish piperade.  Here’s a recipe. Its name is controlled in France (APO) so technically when it’s grown outside of Espelette it is called a Gorria pepper.
• Pimento: Sweet, small, red. How about making some pimento cheese?
• Pippins Golden Honey:  Very sweet orange pepper discovered and bred by an African American folk artist, Horace Pippin.  A favorite in the Philadelphia African American community  in the early 1900s. We pickled them.
• Zolotistyi Sweet: Developed in Minsk. Golden yellow, thick walled, sweet, juicy.
• Zulu: A beautiful black-colored bell pepper from Poland. A little zip. Great for salads and salsas.

Definitely Spicy or Hot

The “hotness” (burning qualities) of peppers is widely measured Scoville Scale, developed in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville, which measures the pungency of peppers in terms of its number of SHUs (Scoville Heat Units) from 0 (a sweet pepper with no capsaicin) to millions (we’re not going near that). So we clue you into how hot a pepper is by telling you the rough number of SHUs. Note that individual peppers of one kind can vary a lot, and the hotness depends on whether it’s dried, fresh, cooked, or what. So, for example, jalapeño peppers, which are familiar and popular in the U.S., are listed as 2,500-8,000 SHUs. We don’t grow the ones that will burn your face off. Unless you are super sensitive. We know folk who brag about how hot they can eat their peppers. That like bragging about how loud you like your music. Hot peppers vary a lot in taste (as well as heat), and that’s the thing that’ important. To us, anyway.

• Alcalde: Medium hot (2,500 SHU), red, 2.75″x 1.25″. Bred in northern New Mexico by the Casados family over many generations. Nice for roasting.
• Aleppo:  Also known as Halaby. 10,000 SHU, has a fruitiness to it with a good kick. Widely used in Turkey, Armenia, usually dried. We dry them.
• Cherry Bomb: Little round hot beauties.
• Chilhuacle Amarillo: (medium heat): One of the trio of chilhuacle (pronounced cheel-wak-lay) peppers from Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-ha-ka), also grown throughout the Andes. Chilhuacle means “ancient chile” in Nahualt, the language of the Aztec peoples. Amarillo means yellow in Spanish. This pepper is rare, having been threatened by disease in its native areas. As its name says, yellow when ripe. a little salty and acidic, with bitter orange and sour cherry tones, bearing smokey undertones, some melon and seediness, and sweetness in the finish. An important ingredient in mole amarillo. We dry them and sell them all year.
• Chilhuacle Negro (1,500-2,500 SHUs): An ancient, rare chile from one particular region of Oaxaca, Mexico.  Chilhuacle means “ancient chile” in Nahualt, the language of the Aztec peoples. Although the name translates as “black,'” it is actually brown when ripe. One of the trio of Chilhuacle peppers from Oaxaca, a core ingredient in the classic mole negro.  It has notes of cocoa, tobacco and dried fruit. Very flavorful. We dry them and sell them all year.
• Chilhuacle Rojo (1,000 SHUs): One of the trio of chilhuacle peppers from Oaxaca, red (“rojo”) when ripe. Chilhuacle means “ancient chile” in Nahualt, the language of the Aztec peoples. Smoky-sweet taste. Some say it tastes of cherries, dried figs, and anise. We dry them and sell them all year.
• Fish Pepper:  Very hot pepper originally from the Caribbean, Popular in African American communities in Philadelphia and Baltimore, especially in fish dishes.  (5,000-30,000 SHU)
• Gochu (Korean Kimchi Pepper): (1,000-1,500). Bright red long fruits with thin skins, widely used for making kimchi and for drying to make chili flakes or gochujang (fermented chili paste). Mildly spicy.
• Guajillo (2,500-5,000): classic pepper from Mexico (mostly Zacatecas) for salsa for tamales. There’s a bit of sweetness to them — kind of a berry flavor. Red when ripe. We dry them and sell them all year.
• Jalapeño Rayados :  (2,500 to higher) . Originally from Hidalgo, Mexico — a good hot jalapeño. Often dried then smoked.
• Jalapeño Zapotec: (2,500 to higher)Originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. It has a smoky sweet hot flavor. Often has cracking lines on the ripe red fruit.
• Leutschauer (Hungarian) Paprika: This is nothing like the paprika you buy in the supermarket that gives you red color but virtually no taste. This is a spicy (but not super hot), tasty paprika — gives you good taste.  Use it for traditional Hungarian dishes or any time you want a little kick but not too much. Nice fresh, but we dry them and sell them all year.
• Negro de la Valle: Beautiful chocolate colored pepper from Chihuahua, Mexico with a little spice and sweet.
• Nora:  Small, round,  sweet (1,000 SHU’s), . It is said Columbus brought it back from the Americas, left it with monks in Spain (at La Nora),  where it was cultivated, mainly in Valencia. Used almost exclusively dried to make Pimenton, used in many local Spanish dishes such as paella, cocidos, chorizo, Romescu sauce (here’s a recipe).  We dry it and sell it all year.
• Pasilla Apaseo: Sweet with some smoke and a little kick (1,000 SHU). Roasted while green, or allowed to ripen. From Oaxaca. We dry them whole and sell them.
• Pasilla Oaxaca: Hot (4,000-10,000 SHU) Oaxacan pepper that is red/black when ripe. We dried them whole and sell them.
• Piment de Espelette: One of the most popular (and official) Basque peppers, used to make piperade, but many people dry it and use it in place of black pepper.  About 5″ long, ripens from green to dark red. Also makes great sauces.
• Pimenta Moranga: Pretty hot Brazilian pepper. Red, teardrop shaped. We pickled them.
• Ring of Fire: (30,000): An improved cayenne type pepper. Use fresh or dry it to make cayenne powder.
• ‘Serrano: (10,000-25,000): This is the second most widely used pepper in Mexican cooking — it originated in Hidalgo and Puebla. Often used green, but also good when it is ripe (variously red, brown, orange, yellow). Often used as the pepper in pico de gallo and salsa.
• Thai Dragon (50,000-100,000): An action-packed tiny red Thai pepper. A little goes a long way.
• Thai Yellow (75,000-150,000): Little orange heat daggers.
• Urfa Biber (30,000-50,000): Hot pepper from the Urfa (southern) region of Turkey. When ripe it is maroon red. Often used to flavor meat dishes, sometimes stuffed. Also widely dried and used as flakes. Spicy, smoky flavor.   You like spicy desserts? Try these Urfa Biber Brownies.

Pepper Powders: Sold through Gilmanton’s Own Market

Why buy generic “hot pepper flakes” in the supermarket when you can get tasty varieties of different spicy peppers that give your cooking different flavors? You have no idea what’s in those “hot pepper flakes” or how they were grown.

Our peppers are selected from heirloom varieties that are specialties from different parts of the world — mostly from Mexico, where home cooks and chefs alike pride themselves on using the best local pepper varieties for their most important dishes, like mole sauces . (Actually, there are at least 7 different traditional mole sauces, using different ingredients and different peppers.)  But we like to experiment with different varieties of peppers in different dishes, just to have fun and great taste.

Clearly, if you do Mexican cooking (or Asian, or African or south European) you need these dried peppers.

You can find them at Gilmanton’s Own Market.