Tips and how to for growing hot peppers in your own home food garden.

Peppers, one of the most popular vegetables grown in home gardens, are available in an astonishing variety of colors, shapes, and heat levels. Peppers are not difficult to grow, but most gardeners find that the hotter the pepper, the warmer the weather they need to produce their best.

Choose a variety of hot pepper that suits your taste, and according to the purpose you have in mind. Some “hot” peppers are actually quite mild, but others are so fiery that you need gloves just to harvest them. The heat in peppers comes from a chemical called capsaicin, and is measured in Scoville Units. Seed catalogs often rank their varieties by Scovilles, so you’ll know how hot the peppers (also called “pods”) will be. Much of the capsaicin is concentrated in the seeds, so if you’re using the peppers in a recipe you can choose to either include or discard the seeds to control the level of heat in the finished dish.

Home food garden tips: A guide to growing hot peppers

Peppers are rarely direct-seeded into the garden soil; most growers plant them in seed flats or other seed starting containers early in the spring. If you start your own, make sure they’re in a warm spot with lots of sun or bright grow lights. Peppers can be difficult to germinate; applying bottom heat helps. An ideal spot for the seed flats is the top of the refrigerator – but move the flat as soon as the seeds sprout so it can get plenty of light. Exposing the seedlings to a light breeze or brushing your hand over them several times a day will help them to grow stocky stems.
If you choose to purchase seedlings from a grower, select stocky, bushy plants with a deep emerald green color. Avoid plants with yellow, mottled, or black speckled leaves, as these are signs of disease. If your seedlings have blooms or peppers already developing, you should remove them. This will give your pepper plants a bit more energy for root development before more pods are produced, resulting in a higher yield later on.

Plant your peppers in a location that has fertiled, well-drained soil and gets full sun for at least eight hours a day. They like plenty of nutrients in the soil, so be sure to amend it with plenty of compost or fertilizer. Peppers are not cold-hardy, so you’ll need to wait until you’re certain there will be no frosty nights. The season can be extended somewhat by using plant shelters, but since warm soil is needed too, gardeners in northern climates may need to apply black plastic or landscape cloth for additional heating.

Pests that may nibble on your pepper plants include aphids, flea beetles, and hornworms. If they invade, you may want to apply a spray containing pyrethrins. Alternatively, let them defend each other – make or purchase a hot pepper spray. This hot stuff will defend your peppers, and other garden plants as well, from most pests from bugs to hungry bunnies. This is a great reason to grow hot peppers, even if you don’t want to eat them!

Your peppers are also susceptible to diseases such as tobacco mosaic virus, blossom end rot, verticillium wilt, anthracnose, and bacterial spot. To prevent these diseases from affecting your garden, take the following precautions:

•  If you smoke, wash hands before handling seedlings.
•  Only purchase seedlings from reputable sources, or grow your own.
•  Don’t plant peppers near related plants, such as tomatoes, potatoes, or eggplant.
•  Water thoroughly, regularly, and make sure it’s early enough that the plants have time to dry out before dusk.
•  Space plants properly to allow for good air circulation.
•  Destroy plants that show signs of disease immediately.

Most pepper varieties can be harvested either green or later, when they change their color – whether it’s red, yellow, or even purple. It may be difficult to wait for them to ripen and mature, but ripe peppers have a more complex, full-bodied flavor and are more attractive in dishes.

Once you start growing this versatile, beautiful plant, you’ll want to experiment with every variety there is and with the many ways to serve them. Chances are you’ll run out of garden space long before you run out of hot peppers to grow there.

Forget home for the holidays — you want customers out of the house and strolling about your grounds this and every Christmas season. Better, you’d love to have them count the experience at your garden center among their most pleasant holiday memories. Here are some proven ways — in words and pictures — to accomplish both goals, courtesy of some of the country’s more savvy marketers.

Wining and dining your customers at special events, such as Ladies Night Out at Countryside Gardens in Hampton, Va., tells them they are special. Better yet is when they tell their friends the same thing.

Create Holidays Of Your Own Right At Your Store

Tish Llaneza, owner of Countryside Gardens in Hampton, Va., doesn’t confine holiday marketing to a small block on the calendar. She markets the store in the community as a destination for the best gardening and gift products in the area. So, when the holidays arrive, customers naturally consider Countryside Gardens a go-to place for all those special somethings that mark the holiday shopping experience.

For example, in November, the store hosts a Ladies Night Out that, over the years, has grown in magnitude to the point that the fire marshal has to be consulted. Translation: The place is packed.

Customers are given a bevy of goodies, including food and drink — and a hot-off-the-press newsletter that highlights what the store has to offer. Shortly thereafter, attendees receive subsequent newsletters touting special gifts available at the garden center — upscale items such as scarves, purses and green goods that aren’t offered elsewhere. Llaneza also markets the fact that many of her wares are made in the U.S.A., a significant selling point with her clientele, as many are military personnel or their wives.

Llaneza doesn’t let the garden center be bound by walls or fences. Every year she purchases the biggest booth at the Bodacious Bazaar at the Hampton Convention Center, held shortly after her own event and hands out flyers marketing the store’s holiday offerings to show goers. This year, more than 10,000 women attended the bazaar.

Llaneza says the buzz from these events is the perfect holiday marketing device. “Being on trend with the newest products has our customers spin our store for us,” she says. “I try not to miss an opportunity to thank guests for supporting us and attending our events. And I tell them we sincerely appreciate them telling friends, family and colleagues about our store.”

Start The Presses!

Llaneza says she tries to make sure the store is represented at events where the local press might

The Garden Gates in Metairie, La., increased Christmas tree sales by 350 percent with a promotion that basically told customers, “If you don’t order trees by Oct. 31, you won’t get one.” Owner Chad Harris first sent a an upscale mailer to customers who had previously purchased trees from the store alerting them that demand would be so high this year that they need to place orders early. Then he followed up with an ad on the store Facebook page saying the same thing. In a week, every tree he planned to sell — and deliver to the customer’s home complete with lights, a stand and a disposal wrap — had been ordered.

be present — and frequently makes herself available for interviews concerning horticulture and gifting.

“Offering information on our industry, cool new gardening products and ideas should be an ongoing relationship,” she says. “Helping them make their job easier whenever possible allows them to know they can call on us. We have already received requests to be a source on stories on gifts for gardeners, made in U.S.A., fair trade and Christmas trees information.”

Think Outside The Boxes

When Rich Clark, owner of Clark Farms in South Kingston, R.I., purchased the company’s in-town

store in 1992, Christmas tree sales were the one facet of the old business that flourished — to the tune of 800 sales per year. By 2005, the competition from area “cut-and-carry” farms and inexpensive, low-end offerings from mass merchants had sliced the number to about 150.

Worried that he was being shoved out of the Christmas tree-selling market, Clark came up with a plan: Offer a flat rate on all trees. “We called it ‘Any tree for $33,’” Clark says. “We offered Fraser furs — not the top-end tree, but a good tree for the price. It wasn’t ‘Charlie Brown’ by any stretch. And the next thing we knew, we had customers asking us about the promotion.”

The plan worked on two fronts. First, people liked the slogan and responded to it. Second, even though Clark Farms wasn’t reaching early 1990s numbers, sales jumped to more than 400 sales. More importantly, because he shopped his trees in the Carolinas, where prices had become and have remained depressed, he found solid product that could yield great margins.

“Now we make more off tree sales than we ever did, even in the early years,” Clark says.

Use Some Real ‘Social’ Networking

Alice Longfellow, owner of Longfellow’s Garden Center in Centertown, Mo., has found a holiday niche that entices customers literally to travel off the beaten path to her retail operation.

My Garden Nursery (formerly in Mill Creek, Wash., but soon to open in Bellington, Wash.) hosts an annual holiday treasure hunt for children, during which they find all manner of goodies — while Mom and Dad browse the store and find treasures of their own to purchase.

“We’re so far out of the city that it’s hard to draw people here during the holidays,” she says. “But one idea that has evolved over time into a success story for us is workshops.”

Specifically, Longfellow’s Garden Center offers a series of workshops, beginning just after Thanksgiving, to help customers create holiday swags. Several days a week, groups of eight sit down for 30 minutes to an hour to craft holiday decorations using all-fresh store materials.

“We market that this is a great place to make a mess,” Longfellow says. “They just pay for the materials they use, create the special swag that fits their specific needs, and then we clean up everything once they’re done.”

Longfellow says the social aspect of sitting with good friends — and newly made ones — to make holiday magic is the chief selling point of the endeavor. Besides that, though, she says the average swag maker usually finds other holiday gift items to take home with her, and, suddenly, a $15 sale triples in size by the time the customer leaves the garden center.

More Holiday Products You Should Sell

Looking for the right products to sell for the holidays? Here are some options that have worked at various garden centers around the country:

Harvey’s Farm in Westborough, Mass., has carved a significant holiday niche by marketing itself as the “mall alternative.” The garden center offers gourmet food and cider samplings to every customer — along with unique gift items such as exquisite cashmere scarves.

Jewelry. “Jewelry is consistently No.1 in the gift shop,” says Countryside Gardens’ Tish Llaneza,. “Poinsettias would be No. 1 in live goods.”

Old world Christmas ornaments. Harvey’s Farms manager Emily Harvey offers this suggestion: “Always add new introductions annually for those customers who collect them. They have a variety of ornaments at reasonable price points versus other collectibles that are too costly for many.”

Fresh greenery (trees, wreaths, arrangements).  Tim Lamprey, owner of Harbor Garden Center in Salisbury, Mass., shops both coasts for unique greenery items to sell. “Unique being the key,” he says.

Kringle candles. Candles from The Kringle Candle Company in Barnardston, Mass., feature an all-white apothecary jar design, as well as high-quality fragrance and wax. They and are popular in the New England area, in particular, because of their “buy local” appeal.

Stocking stuffers. Jenny Gunderson, owner of My Garden Nursery in Bellingham, Wash., says some of her store’s best-selling holiday items are targeted for stockings, notably cocoa packages and funny gum from Blue Q.

Painted birch twigs. “In the first week of sales after Thanksgiving, it becomes apparent quickly what will be popular for the holidays,” Lamprey says. “Last year, it was white painted birch twigs. Go figure.”