Grandpa’s Home Pepper
This plant came to me from Lieven.
This is a Siberian pepper, breed specially for overwintering indoors. The plant sits comfortably on our kitchen windowsill, and the highest point is about 50cm.
Since coming indoors a few weeks ago it’s really started blooming and looks set to start growing lots of tiny fiery hot peppers.
I remember having a plant sort of like this only smaller as a kid. What I remember was the peppers were just so killer hot and the taste wasn’t very nice anyway, so they just weren’t nice to eat.
These peppers on the other hand so far seem a lot nicer to eat. We’ve only cooked with them once, and it’s clear we don’t need to be too afraid of the heat. While we could certainly taste it and it was nice, we would use more next time.
It’s the difference between what was almost certainly an F1 hybrid breed to look nice that I grew as a kid, and this OP version which someone almost certainly breed to taste nice! This one looks pretty nice too, except for being a little bug eaten from the garden.
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That’s interesting. My attempts to overwinter chillies have never worked. Presumably yours can cope better with the lower light levels at this time of year. To be honest I would never have associated Siberia with hot peppers.
The cats nibble on the leaves a bit too.
I have actually seen this type of peppers on window sills in small wooden homes in east sibiria. They have been selected for generations to do well on the window sill in a small window in sibiria. They have them in different varieties. I don’t think they are officially recognised, but more family heirlooms. I didn’t yet have a chance to ask for seeds, but hope to get the opportunity next time I visit Irkutsk.
I have seeds if anyone is interested!
Glad to see your overwintering peppers. I haven’t heard of this variety before.
[...] light, peppers can grow year-long and fruit indoors. Patrick of Bifurcated Carrots posted about a Siberian pepper plant that fruits and even flourishes in low indoor light [...]