Peppers
Serrano
Pico heat, a step above jalapeno.
- 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; even water through the heat
- Harvest
- Jun, then Oct to Nov
Care
- Water
- Deeply and about weekly, morning water, kept even the way all peppers want it here; swings mean blossom end rot, and a mulched bed 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 easy on the nitrogen. No feeding in the July-August heat; the fall bed gets a light feed when set resumes in September.
- Ready
- Slim pods picked green, and the plants hold dozens at once, so work the plant weekly. The fall crop sets from mid-September and picks to frost; any pod left hanging reddens on the plant.
- Trouble
- The same book as the jalapeno: flowers drop through the summer gap and reset when nights cool; aphids answer a hard water spray; bacterial leaf spot means stripping affected leaves and watering the soil, not the plant.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 5–7 gal bag.
- Water
- Daily in summer, twice a day in a heat wave, until it drains from the holes; afternoon shade or 30 to 50 percent shade cloth keeps the root zone alive.
- Feed
- Dilute liquid feed on the watering calendar with a weekly plain-water leach; hold the feed when days top 90F.
- Sow
- One plant per 5 gallon bag at the minimum; bigger is better in the heat.
The pico de gallo chile, a clean step hotter than a jalapeno. Spring plants pick in June; fall plants carry the salsa season to frost.
Growing
AgriLife's Texas pepper sheet names Hidalgo Serrano as the state's serrano, and it grows like every pepper here: January bench on the heat mat, out from mid-March to mid-April once soil is 65F, and loaded with pods before mid-June. A May-started bench transplants July 1 to 25 for the fall crop, which sets again as September's nights cool. The pods are small and slim, so a plant feeds a salsa habit for weeks.
Varieties
Hidalgo Serrano is the named Texas variety; nothing else makes the state lists, so that is the packet to hunt for. The Texas strain is bred on the milder side of the family, so heat-seekers can pick any non-TAM serrano packet.
In the kitchen
This is the pico pepper: seeded and minced raw with tomato, onion and cilantro, where its heat reads clean instead of muddy. Char a handful into a cooked salsa to tame it a notch.