Peppers
Cayenne
Pick red; string the fall crop into ristras.
- Indoors
- 6 to 8 wk (Jan, again May)
- Outside
- Mid Mar to mid Apr, again Jul 1-25
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Deep weekly soak; lean and even for the hottest pods
- Harvest
- Jun red; Oct to Nov for drying
Care
- Water
- Deeply and about weekly, in the early morning, and even; cayenne is the unfussiest chile in the bed, but a soggy week dulls the heat and a lean, even run as the pods color builds it. Mulch holds the schedule through a dry spell.
- Sow
- 2 seeds a quarter inch deep per cell, cut the weaker at the soil line when true leaves show. Spring bench in January; a second bench in May for the fall bed.
- Start inside
- Heat mat at 80 to 90F, sprouts in a week to two; do not skip the mat on a January sowing. Under the lights 14 to 16 hours. Out mid-March to mid-April in 65F soil; fall transplants go out July 1 to 25.
- Feed
- Compost worked in at planting, one side-dress at fruit set, then off the nitrogen. No feeding in the July-August heat; the fall bed gets a light feed when set resumes.
- Ready
- Thin walls color fast, so the June whips redden on the plant; anything still green when the gap closes comes off for fresh use. The fall crop is the ristra crop, ripening red through October and into early November ahead of frost. Cut, do not pull.
- Trouble
- Flowers drop through the gap: normal, they set again once September nights cool. Sunken dark tip on the whips: blossom end rot from water swings, soak evenly. Brittle branches split under a load: a small stake.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 5–7 gal bag.
- Water
- Daily all summer, twice a day in a heat wave, water until it runs from the drainage holes; give the bag afternoon shade or 30 to 50 percent shade cloth through the gap.
- Feed
- Dilute liquid feed on the watering calendar, leached weekly with plain water; alkaline tap water builds salts fast. Hold the feed when days top 90F.
- Sow
- One plant per 5 gallon bag at the minimum; a bigger bag is kinder in Texas heat.
One cayenne plant dries into a winter of heat: red whips off the June plants, then the fall crop strung into ristras before the first frost.
Growing
Peppers want soil of at least 65F at set-out, so the January heat-mat bench transplants from mid-March to mid-April with the plant loaded before the mid-June gap. Thin walls color fast in June heat and the spring whips redden on the plant; keep the red ones picked and the plant keeps setting. The May bench transplants July 1 to 25, and the fall crop sets with September's cool nights, ripening red through October and into early November ahead of frost. That fall crop is the ristra crop, so give it the room.
Varieties
No Texas source recommends a cayenne variety (the sheet captions a Long Red Cayenne photo but lists none), so the entry stays generic; the state sheet's short hot list carries three names and none of them is a cayenne, so pick seed on days to maturity and thin walls that dry clean.
In the kitchen
The dried-chile workhorse: string the red pods into a ristra and hang it in the kitchen, snipping all winter to grind fresh chile powder or crush flakes that put the store jars to shame. A few pods steeped in vinegar keep the hot-sauce shaker full, and dried cayenne is the heat behind a cooked, dried-chile salsa.