#capsicum

Plant of the Day

Monday 8 September 2025

My friend has grown some wonderful chilli plants this year including Capsicum annuum ‘Pixie Lights’. This plant won first prize in the local produce show. This cultivar produces masses of very hot, multi-coloured fruit maturing above the foliage, allowing the show of colours to be better appreciated. The fruit start from purple changing to yellow, orange and finally red. Heat level: very hot (approx. 55,000 SHU)

First ripe peppers of the season!! These are from the cold hardy wild species, Capsicum flexuosum. The fruits are like little orange pearls! I ended up recording 145 days to harvest from sowing, with germination happening at about a month.

They’re still not looking too happy but they’re flowering and fruiting! I’ll probably end up having to amend the soil and try a trick where I make a bubble of houseplant soil within the heavier P patch soil to make things easier for peppers, since they seem to not like the soil there.

Of course after harvesting the seeds, I did a taste test (with milk on hand of course) and yeah as expected they sure did pepp! They weren’t as sweet as described, but that might just because the plants aren’t super well established. Very excited to have perennial peppers in Seattle, assuming I can keep them going.