Machu Pichu Chilli Pepper Seeds

An exciting new Capsicum chinense cultivar from Peru. The elongated, slightly wrinkled chillies have a rich flavour and a fairly mild to medium pungency. The chillies dry well and make an excellent chilli powder, but can equally well be used fresh.

The upright growing plants are particularly handsome with dark green chillies maturing to rich chestnut brown and are ideal for growing in containers on the patio where they remain compact and crop early.

Grown in the open ground the plants are much larger and very productive, but the chillies ripen fairly late in the season.

• Species : Capsicum chinense
• Origin : Peru
• Plant : upright, dense
• Chillies : large, pendent
• Shape : oblong
• Flavour : rich, smoky
• Pungency : medium
• Unripe Chillies : dark green
• Ripe Chillies : dark brown
• Flesh : medium
• Core : small
• Season : early
• Yield : very high

Green Thumb Tip

Sow seeds indoors ¼" deep. Peppers germinate best in warm soil, so gentle bottom heat may be helpful until seedlings emerge. Wait to transplant outdoors until soil is warm.

Growing Peppers:

Peppers, like tomatoes, grow in well-drained fertile soil

Almost all peppers have the same requirements for successful growth.  Plant them in good, well-drained, fertile soil ? and make sure they get lots of sunlight and a good inch of water per week.  In many ways, they mimic the same requirements needed for growing great tomatoes.

At Planting Time:

We plant all of our peppers with a good shovel full of compost in the planting hole, and then give them a good dose of compost tea every few weeks for the first 6 weeks of growth.  We also mulch around each of our pepper plants with a good 1 to 2? thick layer of compost.

Peppers often like to take their sweet time germinating. They can be up in a week, and some will take almost a month. Even with paper towel germination testing, they can take long. I am not sure why, but it is a normal occurrence. So plan and make sure you start them early enough! Also, remember they like heat to germinate so make sure you have a heating mat or something to keep the soil warm. Placing them up on top of the fridge often works too since it is normally warmer up there.

Peppers do very well grown in pots.