And now for something completely different.
Yesterday, Kid 1 went outside to check her peppers – more on that later – and came back inside.
“Something is screaming in the jasmine bush.”
We all know that there are cardinals nesting in that giant bush, so Gordon and I run outside. I stand by the bush and don’t see anything.
Screeaaaam.
It’s not a bird, it’s not a cat, or any other mammalian critter. This sounds eerie and weird as hell.
Kid 1 is also weirded out. “What is that?”
Me: I don’t know.
Screeaaaam.
Some creature is clearly in distress and it sounds right in front of me. I lean in to look.
A skinny green snake about a foot and a half is wrapped around the branch. It’s biting a green frog on its butt. The frog is not huge but its body is about 5 times what that snake can swallow. It’s like trying to shove a lime into a drinking straw. Even if the snake unhinged its jaws all the way, this is anatomically impossible.
The snake is not letting go.
Screeaaaam.
Gordon says, “Where are those forceps?”
The forceps are found and brought to him. He plucks the snake with the frog attached out of the bush, convinces the snake to let go, the frog dashes off, and the snake predictably decides to coil around the forceps and my husband’s hand, at which point it is tossed into the underbrush.
I did not take pictures during the ordeal because the matter was urgent, but we have since determined that our guest was probably a rough green snake common to our area of Texas.
The internet tells us that their diet consists of crickets, moths, grasshoppers, and other small thingies. A large cricket was probably that guy’s top prey size. What he was going to do with that frog nobody knows.
The snake matter handled, we check the peppers. Kid 1 had planted a wide variety and I was most excited about Sweet Heat pepper, which our local Lowe’s billed as a slightly spicy bell pepper. I used to eat very spicy food – at one point in my life I would eat Sichuan peppers straight – but I am older now and I try to take it easy. My mouth still likes the heat, but the rest of me not so much.
This is what Sweet Heat peppers look like. We are sure what we are because we planted their little tag next to them.
We tried a green one before and it tasted like grass. Peppers become hotter and their flavor intensifies as they ripen. One of the peppers turned red. So I, confident that I was in safe territory, decided to try it. I plucked it off the plant and bit a small piece.
Then I went directly inside, put the pepper on the island, got milk out of the fridge and then swished in my mouth while my eyes watered. Sweet heat, my ass. This tasted like an off-the-scale habanero. Like burn. Actual burn. Sweet heat peppers are not supposed to taste that way.
Two planters over, Kid 1 raised a ghost pepper, which is hot as hell.
Kid 1, who has my spicy level tolerance, and hers might actually be better than mine, tasted one of these ghost peppers before and described the experience as “instant regret.”
My question to you is, could cross-pollination between the two pepper plants have resulted in the polluting of the sweet bell pepper?
I have seen something similar happen with tomatoes, but only in second generation. Years ago my grandmother had acquired seed for the giant pink tomato. Those things were truly massive, huge tomatoes, sweet and yummy. Everyone liked them. She planted them next to yellow tomatoes, and after a couple of years of collecting and planting the seed we ended up with a hybrid plant which produced meh tomatoes.
Could cross-pollination affect heat level, or did Lowe’s con us into buying habaneros?
My friend who has been growing peppers for years stated that its almost impossible to get an “xx variety pepper” because they cross-pollinate while they are still in the ground. He’s had bell peppers that were hotter than ghost peppers and ghost peppers that tasted like water.
My daughter’s little frog screams and I never believed her until she videoed it lol
And I grow bell peppers and jalapeños and I swear every season they taste different than the one before. Some spicier, some not. It’s weird. Short answer? I don’t know lol I think you’re right though.
Pollination should only affect the next generation. My bet is that the peppers were mislabeled or somebody switched tags at some point.
This was what I’m thinking too,mislabeled. I’m not sure which is worse Lowe’s or Kohls.
It looks like a crossbred between the habaneros and bells (since bell peppers rank as a 0 on the Scoville scale they would have to be crossed with something). I would think they would use something milder though. here is the entry I found: https://www.totallytomato.com/product/T03088/64
My cat used to bring in toads. She kept them alive but slapped them so they screamed, hard! We always saved them of course, but what a noise!!
The cross pollination should affect the seeds, not the fruit of that plant. So second generation would be the new hybrid peppers. Maybe lowes had the parents of your plant too close together and inadvertently hybridized it?
Isn’t the heat mostly in the seeds, so could affect the 1st generation/parent plant heat level?
I was telling my husband about this, and he said that it’s in the seeds and pith. If you remove the seeds and pith from a jalapeño, you remove the heat. But in a ghost pepper, half of the heat is stored in the pith and seeds, and the other half in the skin, so you are toasted either way. The link is to an article from 2016 in the Atlantic about ghost pepper heat research. (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/ghost-pepper-heat-research/473361/)
The seeds are still sweet heat seeds. Inside them is DNA that is a hybrid. Then that DNA turns into a new plant, whose seeds will be half sweet heat, half ghost pepper. But the DNA has not expressed in the parent and has no heat itself, so pollen from a ghost pepper won’t make the seeds of a sweet heat plant hot. They were already hot.
I know cross pollination in corn causes issues (glass gem isn’t supposed to be planted next to sweet for example) But never had it happen with peppers. Stress, droughts, etc can increase hotness if I’m not mistaken.
Wow, no clue. I am sure the BDH will have at least a few master gardeners who can help sort this out. Good luck!
BTW: “Instant Regret” would be a fantastic name for a hot sauce, if not already taken.
Oh, that would be an awesome hot sauce name! Assuming, of course, that you were going for that particular consumer base.
Also “Immediately No”
We only plant one kind of pepper at a time now because they always cross pollinated and we ended up with mutants. Bell peppers ridiculously hot. Ghost peppers with no heat. Weird tasting peppers of a variety of odd shapes and sizes. We had 5 years of weird and bad pepper crops before we decided only 1 kind of pepper a year.
Google tells me that if it’s the first years’ crop where the cross pollination happened that it won’t affect taste but will cause the seeds from that crop to be affected. So if you plant the seeds that formed from that initial cross pollination then those plants will produce fruit that do have their taste affected. This link was fairly comprehensive: https://laidbackgardener.blog/2017/06/01/gardening-myth-if-you-plant-hot-peppers-and-sweet-peppers-together-it-will-alter-their-taste/?amp=1
Yes, keep your sweet peppers a good distance away from the hot.
I always say our Texas heat and mean ol’ dirt makes for hotter peppers. Try the Texas A&M jalapeño for a milder heat.
Garden adventures ????????
First off, the snake. I had a similar looking snake (in NC) wrap around my ankle & scare the bejeezus out of me 🙂 I screamed, shook my leg & the snake flew into the vines in front of me. It was about a half inch or less around & about 3-4 feet long. Of course, it slithered off as if nothing happened…
I don’t know diddly about cross-pollination, but from what you said about those tomatoes it sounds like that is what happened to the sweet peppers. Maybe move them further away from each other?
Don’t have a clue about pollination etc. But I have tomatoes!!
Sorry, I have the black thumbs of death so there’s no help or botanical knowledge to be found here. Or reptile or amphibian ones either.
Like you, I used to eat really spicy but have eased off in recent years. My brother always claimed my taste buds were burnt off eons ago.
My friend told me years ago that you need to be careful where you plant hot peppers…that they somehow impact other foods growing nearby….no idea why.
Maybe they were mislabeled?
+1
Entirely possible some unmentionable twit went through the pepper trays at Lowes switching the label tags when they were indistinguishable innocent green sprouts. I’ve had that happen before.
My condolences to your digestive tract! You can always grind them up in water and strain the liquid to spray on things you don’t want deer eating (or the salad of the person who switched the tags, if you could find them!). ????♀️
“Instant Regret” is the smell of my cats farts. I don’t think more likely that you got either a sport pepper, or one that was mislabeled by the store. I love the Cool-peño peppers I planted last year. Shaped like Jalapeño, but mild enough that I can taste the pepper, instead of just feeling the heat.
WOW – that is a lot of typos. Sorry.
Yes. Cross pollination can happen in peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers.
Yes, it cross-pollination can happen but cross-pollination affects the seeds, not the fruit as someone said earlier. Most likely it was a changed tag or cross-pollination in the prior generation by careless growers
Cross pollination is almost certain to occur. The pepper is the fruit of the plant and derives from the same source as the seed, so yes, it is possible or even likely.
Yes! We had cross pollination happed with our bell peppers and our ghost pepper. We had one bell by the ghost and another across the yard, and the farther away bell was sweet as can be. The satan bell pepper was instantly off limits to human consumption. It took a few different tries before be learned to plant spicy peppers only by other spicy peppers. That being said, if you want a spicy sweet pepper my favorite is Bishops Crown, they are cool to look at and actually taste amazing! (This is coming from growing peppers in Oklahoma,so it should be pretty similar for y’all!)
Home Depot carries Bonnie brand plants. This last couple of years, they have carried Mad Hatter peppers, which are a cross between Bishop’s Crown and something else (sorry, I forget) and have the wonderfully weird shape of the Bishop’s Crown peppers, but with only a moderate amount of heat (less than jalepenos). You can actually taste the wonderful flavor of the pepper without losing all sensation in your tongue!
I know nothing about gardening, but bless you for rescuing the poor frog!
This comment has nothing to add on cross-polination. I know nothing about it and will not pretend to.
I am, though, a fan of HA’s heat rating system for peppers. “Instant regret.” *snort laugh*
Must be snake week. A beautiful, long, Garter snake was disturbed on the walkway in front of my home. Silly me I needed to get my mail.
With a huffy look it sidewinded away.
Beautiful snake. Black with a light yellow stripe. I see them on occasion.
When we were raising bees, we had all sorts of cross-pollination going on. Bell peppers that were hot, varieties of cucumbers mixing it up. All sorts of weird combinations going on. Moral of story plant only one type of cucumber, plant only one type of pepper, etc, If you have bees, they can mess you up this way.
Yeah…those look a lot like habeneros. We get them from the local farmers market. Maybe somebody switched them at the store for a prank?
Cross pollination would affect the offspring of the plants, the fruit it forms is based on the parent’s genetics, not the seed’s.
The heat level also can be affected by climate and soil conditions, it could be in a colder climate the peppers would be milder, but bc your soil and climate is different they may have become a lot hotter.
It is also possible someone put the wrong tag on the plant,too.
Hahahahaha, that snake literally tried to bite off more that it could chew (or swallow). Also, dumb question- it was the frog that was screaming? Or the snake screaming in frustration? hahahaha, I didn’t know either one could scream.
And I would love to taste the “instant regret” peppers! Sorry, I know nothing about planting and cross-pollination.
My parents told me about an Australian tour guide who made an instant enemy. They were in the outback and one of the ladies needed to “water the bushes” but was terrified of being bitten by a snake. The guide told her “Don’t worry, your butt is too big.” The snake in question had a mouth that could only fit around the tip of a pinky finger.
Yes, cross pollination can and will happen especially with peppers, zucchini & cucumbers. Peppers seem to love to cross pollinate. Made the mistake of planting either zucchini or cucumbers next to cantaloupes one year because surely, they could not possibly cross pollinate. All I can say is the results were not pretty or eatable.
We don’t plant any kind of melons anymore because they cross-pollinate with the zucchini squash and the result is not good. First generation.
Don’t know much about peppers other than to plant them in threes (triangle) so they shade each other a little & do better. But maybe only one variety at a time?
Your reaction reminded me of Alessandro eating the pepper Catalina was chopping for taco sauce.
How did the potatoes work out?
Alessandro and the habanero was my first thought! It’s almost like a fictional character got revenge on his creators …
Ha! Yes, we got cuculoupes one year. Not edible!
My family has been growing peppers and farming forever, and you can’t plant sweet and hot together they cross pollinate and taste weird, mostly you get all hot as that seems to be dominate. Also colors, if you plant red next to green you get a weird purplish thing that tastes weird, as green is dominate. And squash lol don’t plant next to cucumbers they are in the same family and will also cross, they taste absolutely horrible????
I will tell you in a few weeks, because I could swear that I have had that happen before. So we have Jalapenos and sweet bell in the same bed. I fear that the sweet bells will be hot. But that is not scientifically possible, according to my husband.
Worst case scenario I won’t have ghost pepper heat. Not even Serrano heat. But I would like for my grandchildren to be able to enjoy my sweet peppers.
I hope the frog heals from its ordeal.
Cross pollination is real. You need more distance. Put the ghost pepper out front, it might even keep the deer out of your bushes.
One year we had watermelon and pumpkins. The next year we had pumpmelons. Turns out pumpkins are the plant version of boudas.
That gives a whole new meaning to “pumpkin spice” 😀
“Snort”
+1
????
You could have gotten a waterpump. Handy.
I remember on an animal rescue show. Some people sledge hammered through a foundation and wall to get to a pipe to get a “kitten” out of the pipe behind the foundation and wall. Only to find it was a screaming frog camped out in a wet pipe.
They did NOT look impressed LOL
Yes, absolutely. Bees can visit both and you can get super hot bell peppers that way. The one year we had a habanero plant my jalapeños and banana peppers were inedible. The hottest we go now is jalapeño and I cluster the hot peppers in one bed and the sweet peppers in another location altogether.
One year, I thought I was planting Rutgers but ended up with Roma. Many, many Roma tomatoes.
The greenhouse had alphabetized the varieties and someone had made a mistake.
I think it is far more likely that someone made a similar mistake with your peppers than cross-pollination happened. I had trouble getting rid of all those tomatoes. Hope you have better luck!
I’m pretty sure they cross pollinate. Weather does affect flavor and to some degree the heat, and also the plumpness of the pepper itself. However, with that much heat, I’d guess cross pollination. Of course, mislabeling is a constant problem. People take the tags out, look at them, and then put it down wherever. I grew the “wrong” tomato a few times and it was definitely labeling problems because cherry tomatoes are easy to identify and I never buy those plants on purpose. I much prefer grape tomatoes if I’m going to grow a small tomato.
I didn’t know frogs could scream either. Y’all have such *interesting* escapades.
Yes – not a pepper grower but my Mother was and she described a similar experience (though with different varieties of peppers than your example).
My experience says. “Yes, peppers cross pollinate>” Yours have more of an habanero rather than bell pepper shape. my take is either crossing or mislabelling and you got habaneros. At my local Farmers Mkt someone has “habanada” peppers, a heatless habanero. They taste like crap and really have no character to speak of, Some grow Padrons until they are big a ripe red- and they taste great until 5 seconds later when the heat kicks in. It is intense, and causes ropy drool and you sit there with your tongue hanging out and a painbuzz starts. Chilies are a trippy plant. Move a Scotch Bonnet from its home turf and it may turn into a habnero,
So, long story short- yes, your pepper could easily have morphed from something mildly tingly to “kill me now” blazing. 35+ years as a chef, chilie head, and farmers market patron has helped with education.
My habanadas had lots of flavor last year and bore heavily.
Mineral composition of the soil (e.g. sulphur) can affect the peppers (or any fruit). We actually recommend higher sulphur input if the goal is to get hot/hotter peppers. (we deal in fertilizers)
It affects flowering plants too. I have bought roses in bloom, glorious scent, plant them in my light, sandy soil, and presto! No fragrance.
Not every rose, but many.
No answer on the peppers, they were all bugified the last time I tried to grow any and that was decades and different USDA zones ago.
BUT – when I was a kid, we had a cat who would bring in salamanders overnight. He would come in the window, mouth open, yelling at mom to See What He Caught!!! See the Fierce Hunterrrr!!! She would get up, rip a page out of Life magazine, put the salamander on the center of the page, and sail it out the window to the garden one story below. You could tell how busy the cat had been by how many pages were down there. It was not rare for me to have to go pick up 4-5 pages in the morning.
Yes! A few years ago a friend planted bell peppers, for herself, and habinero, for a friend. She gave me the bell peppers saying they were far too spicy for her. I thought she was over reacting and put them in a pot of chilli. It turned out so hot it was almost inedible even without seeds and veins.
I had it happen in my garden before. Ended up playing like pepper popper roulette as party snacks, never knew if you were going to get mild, medium, or burn your lips off.
Oh no! On the snake froggie situation. Frogs can make a lot of noise. Once i heard something VERY loud and like nothing I ever heard before. I looked all over and finally found a tiny frog the size of my thumb nail on the windowsill making the noise.
Ouch on the peppers. We’re old white people now who tolorate zero heat here.
I don’t have any gardening knowledge to share, but I found an article on growing conditions that make peppers hotter:https://www.gardenmyths.com/growing-hotter-peppers/
Some of the possible causes deemed to be non-myths include stressed plants due to lower watering levels, very high or very low nitrogen levels in the soil, the time of harvest (40-45 days of ripening produced the hottest results), warm temperatures at night, and exposure to fungus or insect attacks.
I just did some more digging and realized the reason you were asking about cross pollination is because bell peppers are not supposed to be able to produce any capsaicin. (*facepalm*) Ah, well, I did provide a warning that I had no gardening knowledge. I also have no knowledge of peppers in general, apparently.
My only other suggestion would be the highly unlikely option that the “spiciness” could actually be a manifestation of Oral Allergy Syndrome causing an itchy tongue. With a history of eating peppers with no issues, though, that’s probably not it.
Wow! They look like a bells – mostly. It might be interference from the habanero. We’ve had this happen with peppers before. The Carolina Reaper my husband, the chili head, planted did terrible, sneaky and scorching things to the sweet bell peppers and poblanos that summer. Never again in the same garden bed!
Frog screams…must have been terrifying for every being involved. Gotta love a snake with a “can do” attitude though.
Although peppers usually don’t cross, sweet peppers & hot peppers are both of the same species & can cross with each other. If pollen from a hot pepper fertilizes the flower of a sweet pepper, all of the hot pepper genes from the father plant go into the embryo and the seed. Hot stuff!
It would affect the 2nd generation not tge current. Someone may have planted the parent of your sweet heat too close to a hot pepper… or it was mislabeled.
I grew up (in a very rural area) thinking that bell peppers were hot. When I first tried “store- bought” bells, I was astonished. Turns out that the bells we grew were cross-pollinated with the hot peppers that grew a few rows over.