PlantFiles: Hot Pepper
Capsicum chinense 'Aji Dulce'

I grew six or eight of these peppers over winter indoors from seed and put them out in the sun all summer in 6" pots. They produced a fair number of very small but tasty and pretty red peppers -- delicate, just a hint of heat, good taste. A friend who is from New Mexico and thinks of herself as a hot pepper expert was impressed with their look and taste. I actually set them back a bit when I first put them outside this summer -- I hurried them out into full sun too quickly, and some of their leaves got burned. I understand that they're supposed to be perennial, and I'm going to try to winter them over on my sun porch. I hope that they can take temperatures down to the 40s and high 30s F. I plan to cut them back hard when daytime temps start staying below 60 F. My hope is that they will go semi-dormant and revive in the late spring when temps get back in the 70s regularly. I may not cut them all back hard, just in case they aren't able to come back from that, but I think they will -- I cut some of them back a little last spring before they went outside for the summer, and they seemed to sprout new leaves and stems just fine. I'll probably re-pot them in bigger pots next spring. They may produce more and larger peppers with more root room.

A mild green to red 2 3/4 X 1 inch pepper.