Italian Long Hot Chile, PEPPER SEEDS Capsicum annuum, Caribbeangardenseed

Italian Long Hot chile peppers are best suited for both raw and cooked applications such as grilling, frying, and roasting. When fresh, the peppers can be diced and added to green salads, or they can be chopped into salsas, marinades, and sauces. In cooked preparations, the peppers are popularly fried whole, including the skin and seeds, with olive oil, salt, and garlic, prepared similarly to shishito peppers.

They can also be roasted and added to sandwiches or burgers, baked with cheese and cured meats as an appetizer, topped over pizza, incorporated into pasta dishes, or pickled for use as a condiment. Italian Long Hot chile peppers pair well with meats such as poultry, beef, pork, and fish, mussels, calamari, fresh bread, cheeses such as provolone, Kashkaval, and parmesan, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, and balsamic vinegar. Fresh peppers will keep 1-2 weeks when stored whole and unwashed in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Pickled peppers will keep up to one year in the refrigerator.
Caution: Recommend using gloves while processing these peppers. Avoid touching skin and eyes.

Italian Long Hot chile peppers are elongated, curved to straight pods, averaging 17 to 20 centimeters in length and 2 to 5 centimeters in diameter, and have a conical shape that tapers to a point on the non-stem end. The skin is smooth, glossy, and waxy with folds and creases, and the pod is initially green, ripening to a dark red when mature. Underneath the surface, the flesh is thin, crisp, and pale green to pale red, depending on maturity, encasing a narrow, central cavity filled with small white membranes and round and flat, cream-colored seeds. Italian Long Hot chile peppers have a mild and sweet flavor mixed with low, moderate, to hot levels of spice. Each individual pepper will vary in heat level.

Planting depth: Bury root ball and up to 1″ of stem.
Tilling: Optional but does improve drainage and helps roots grow.
Light Requirements: Full Sun. Peppers like heat but a string of days in the 90’s will often halt blooming and pepper development. This stress can take a week or more to recover from delaying and reducing harvest. Woven shade cloth supported above the plants by poles is used by some growers to moderate sun exposure.

Watering: Without rain, peppers need watered well 1 – 2x per week depending on how hot it is. Your soil type will also affect water needs. Carefully observing the plants and how long your soil remains damp is the best way to learn how to manage your unique conditions. To prevent fungal disease water late morning or early afternoon so the sun will quickly dry the leaves and stems. If you must water on cool, cloudy days, wet the soil below the plants, ie. keep the leaves dry.