Any chilli growers out there?

[Primrose]

Perhaps somebody can answer this question. I normally grow Hungarian Hot Wax which we freeze or make Sweet Chilli Sauce with. But this year I bought a plant from a market stall labelled "Chilli Pepper - Banana". The fruit on this are now ripe and we planned to use them to make more chilli sauce but on chopping them up they taste so mild that I'm wondering if they are actually a pepper rather than a chilli. They are wide pointed fruit, between three and four inches long. I do find this labelling of fruit as Chilli Peppers very confusing. To my mind a plant is either a Chilli or a Pepper.

[alan refail]

Hi Primrose

I grow chillis but would not class myself as a "chilli grower".

Apparently "banana" is a sweet pepper - see HERE.

I would always be wary of labelling on bought plants. I noticed that my local garden centre, which is usually very reliable and knowledgeable, had some pots of garlic chives labelled as "common chives" the other week.

The naming of Capsicum species is notoriously fraught, as is also the case with such things as Cucurbitae - courgettes/marrows/squashes/pumpkins.

I suppose most people accept that chilli refers to HOT and pepper/sweet pepper refers to mild.

Oh, and I would always mistrust market stalls!

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Primrose. I grew chilli this year, and was a tad disappointed as they were the small birds eye chilli, however, they made up for tiny size with quantity three plants loaded, I will be abl to make some chilli jam for my daughter in law, a favourite of hers. If you have a good chilli sauce recipe I would like to give that a try too. I hope to overwinter the plants for an earlier crop next year, and maybe try a different variety alongside those for next year.

[Primrose]

I've been doing a little search on the internet and apparently there are "Hot Banana Peppers" and "Sweet Banana Peppers" and you can tell the difference by the way the fruit hangs. If the fruit drops downwards, it is a Sweet Banana pepper, and if the fruit points upwards it is a "Hot Banana Pepper".

So I've definitely got a Sweet Banana Pepper and am annoyed that it was labelled as a chilli, which is what I thought I was buying. In my book if a fruit is sweet it's a pepper, and if it's hot it's a chilli.

Alan - you're right about the heading of "Capiscum" as being very confusing. I bought this single plant from a market stall as I wanted to do a comparison between that variety and the Hungarian Wax I normally grow as they looked very similar in size & shape and I wondered whether there would be much difference in the heat. I won't bother to overwinter the plant as the peppers I grow are the thin skinned Italian pointed variety and much bigger. Another lesson learned for next year!

Anyway, they weren't wasted. My OH just chopped them up as if they were chillies in a recipe for Sweet Chilli sauce and added a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, which seems to have done a pretty effective rescue job. So another lesson learned - if you want to make sweet chilli sauce and only have a surplus of peppers, adding cayenne pepper produces a pretty good substitute.

Nature's Babe - the recipe for Sweet Chilli Sauce is posted in the Recipes section if you're interested.

[Nature's Babe]

Thank you Primrose.

[Nature's Babe]

Sorry, i should have remembered that, a lot on my mind at the moment, Mum in hosp still, and partner not well !