I broke my hard and fast rule about not buying any more annuals.

[Fritz Walter]

9. The flowers are very pretty, but...

...as a "pepper head," I gotta ask: is there a specific chili pepper plant you were seeking?

Eight years ago, my local nursery offered "Hawaiian Peppers" so I bought a couple of starters. Hawaiians -- or Capsicum fruitescens – have a unique combination of heat and sweetness. On the Scoville Heat Unit scale, they clock in at 50,000 – 70,000 SHU. By comparison, Jalapeños are rated at 5,000, and Habaneros top off at 150,000. They seem to do very well in this Northeast Florida climate.



And each and every generation is hotter than the one before. Plant evolution, where the strongest survive and adapt to produce seeds? Maybe, but they're my favorite, and Generation-8 plants should be producing very soon.