Peter Pepper (Orange) Seeds

Let's not beat around the bush: the Peter Pepper is famous for looking rude, and this is the bright orange version. It's a genuine novelty chilli, an heirloom that's become a cult favourite purely because of its, ahem, distinctive anatomical shape, and it's a guaranteed talking point in any garden. Behind the giggles, though, it's a real, usable chilli with a proper kick.

The Peter Pepper is a Capsicum annuum, an American heirloom of uncertain but long-standing origin, grown as much for novelty as for eating. The pods are the whole joke: wrinkled, elongated, and shaped, unmistakably, like a certain part of the male anatomy, ripening here to a bright, cheerful orange. A productive plant carries a generous and, frankly, amusing crop.

Novelty aside, the flavour and heat are genuine. It carries a real medium heat, roughly cayenne-like, with a decent, slightly sweet, peppery flavour, so it's perfectly usable in the kitchen as well as being a laugh. The orange version behaves just like the classic red, just in a different colour.

This one's for the grower with a sense of humour, and it makes a brilliant, cheeky gift for a fellow gardener. It's productive, genuinely hot, and an absolute guaranteed conversation starter, nobody walks past a fruiting Peter Pepper without comment. If you want a chilli that raises a smile and still earns its place in the kitchen, this is the one.

As an annuum, the Peter Pepper is fairly straightforward to grow, though it can be a touch slower and more temperamental to germinate than some, so a little patience helps.

Sow seeds indoors from late August to September. You can start in July with steady warmth, which gives this slightly slower variety a good run.

If you like, soak seeds for 12 to 24 hours before sowing to soften the coat, then pat them dry. Sow two seeds per cell, about 5mm deep, in good seed-raising mix. Keep them consistently warm at 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. Peter Pepper seeds can be a little slow and erratic, so a heat pad helps, and don't lose faith if they take their time.

Keep the mix moist but never soggy. Once seedlings are up with a couple of true leaves, pot them on and keep them warm and bright.

When they reach 100 to 150mm tall and the weather has warmed properly, move them to their final home, in the ground or a pot of 15 to 20 litres or so. Full sun and a bit of shelter, and it'll get on with it.

The plant grows to around 60 to 90cm and is productive, so a stake helps keep it upright once it's carrying its (amusing) load.

The Peter Pepper makes a productive, bushy plant of around 60 to 90cm, and a generous cropper of those unmistakable pods. A stake is worth having once it's loaded up.

Pinch out the main growing tip early to encourage branching. More branches means more flowering sites, which means a heavier (and more entertaining) crop.

Water consistently, keeping the soil moist but never waterlogged. Pots dry fast in a NZ summer, so check them regularly, and steady watering also heads off blossom end rot on the pods.

Feed with a tomato fertiliser once flowering starts. Chillies and tomatoes want much the same things, so keep it simple.

It's a reliable, productive cropper, and a plant hung with those famous pods is a guaranteed source of amusement. Keep picking to keep it producing through the season.

Like many chillies, it can be overwintered as a perennial. Bring it somewhere frost-free, cut it back in autumn, and it'll return in spring with a head start on anything grown from seed.

Expect your first pods around 90 to 100 days from transplant.

The pods ripen from green to a bright orange, developing their full, unmistakable shape as they mature. Pick them fully coloured for the best flavour and the most, er, developed appearance, when they come away with a gentle tug. Snip rather than pull to protect the branches, and pick regularly to keep the plant productive.

Given the heat, gloves are a sensible idea once you start cutting into them in quantity. At 5,000 to 30,000 SHU there's a genuine medium kick here, enough to sting and to make eye-rubbing a mistake, so it's worth washing your hands well after prepping a batch.

The plant will keep flowering and setting fruit until the cold shuts it down, so expect a long, generous (and reliably amusing) harvest through late summer and autumn.

For storage, the Peter Pepper is versatile. It's fine fresh, keeping a week or so in the fridge, and of course it's often kept whole and dried simply as a novelty conversation piece, the dried pods holding their shape. The pods also dry well for flakes and powder, and they freeze fine, whole or chopped.

Make no mistake, novelty aside, this is a genuinely warm chilli, sitting at around 5,000 to 30,000 SHU. That's a real medium heat, roughly on a par with a hot jalapeño up to a serrano or milder cayenne at the top end, so it's got a proper kick behind the giggles. This is no mild ornamental, it's a usable, genuinely hot pepper.

The flavour is decent and slightly sweet, more than you'd expect from a pepper grown mostly for a laugh, so it's genuinely worth using in the kitchen rather than just displaying.

As with any chilli, individual pods vary, and heat shifts with the season, the sun and how the plant was grown. A long hot summer generally produces fiercer pods. Much of the heat sits in the seeds and membrane, so removing them tames it if you want to use the flesh more gently.

Handle it with sensible respect once you're slicing: gloves for prepping a batch, and keep the pods away from eyes, kids and pets. Used with a measured hand, it brings a genuine medium heat that makes it a properly usable chilli, quite apart from its comedy value.

An easygoing, productive plant with the usual watch-list.

Aphids will go for the soft new growth in spring. A blast from the hose or a squash between the fingers handles small numbers, and ladybirds and lacewings do the rest if you let them. Whitefly can build up in a warm greenhouse, so yellow sticky traps and decent airflow keep them honest.

At the seedling stage, damping off is the main risk. Use fresh seed-raising mix, avoid overwatering, and give trays a bit of air movement. Slugs and snails will happily mow down young transplants overnight, so protect new plantings until they've toughened up.

On the disease front, most trouble is water-related. Overwatering invites root rot, and erratic watering can bring on blossom end rot, those dark sunken patches on the pod tips. Consistent moisture and free-draining mix prevent most of it.

Nothing here is dramatic. A well-watered, well-drained plant in a sunny spot will crop reliably and amusingly all season.

The Peter Pepper is grown mostly for a laugh, but it carries a genuine medium heat and decent flavour, so it's properly usable in the kitchen too.

As a novelty, its main "use" is the display and the gift: a fruiting plant, or a jar of dried pods, is a guaranteed conversation piece, and it makes a brilliantly cheeky present for a fellow gardener with a sense of humour.

But treat it as a genuine medium chilli and it earns its keep. The pods can be chopped fresh into salsas, sauces and salsas for a real kick, and their slightly sweet flavour is a bonus. They dry well for flakes and a medium-hot powder, a practical way to use a glut, and they're perfectly good pickled.

Their shape makes them a, well, memorable garnish, and they're often used whole and dried purely for the novelty. But behind the joke, this is a usable pepper: anywhere you'd use a hot jalapeño or a mild cayenne, the Peter Pepper does the job, with a smirk.

The through-line is genuine heat with a comedy bonus. Grow it for the laughs, by all means, but don't overlook that it's a real, usable medium chilli that brings a proper kick to the kitchen.