Plant Care Library

Group/Class:  Ornamental-Culinary

Description:

Clusters of small, marble like hot peppers sitting on top of dark green foliage create a unique and interesting feature to any garden or container; mature fruit is a bright cherry red; a hot variety that is ideal for pickling, drying or hot sauce

Edible Qualities

Nosegay Hot Pepper is an annual vegetable plant that is typically grown for its edible qualities, although it does have ornamental merits as well. It produces small light green round peppers (which are technically 'berries') with a orange blush and red flesh which are typically harvested when mature. The fruit will often fade to cherry red over time. The peppers have a hot taste and a crunchy texture.

The peppers are most often used in the following ways:

• Eating When Cooked/Prepared
• Cooking
• Pickling
• Sauces

Planting & Growing

Nosegay Hot Pepper will grow to be about 12 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 9 inches. When planted in rows, individual plants should be spaced approximately 9 inches apart. This vegetable plant is an annual, which means that it will grow for one season in your garden and then die after producing a crop.

This plant is quite ornamental as well as edible, and is as much at home in a landscape or flower garden as it is in a designated vegetable garden. It should only be grown in full sunlight. It is very adaptable to both dry and moist growing conditions, but will not tolerate any standing water. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.

Nosegay Hot Pepper is a good choice for the vegetable garden, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. It is often used as a 'filler' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, providing a mass of flowers against which the larger thriller plants stand out. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.