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Hi Dave, my name is Jake,
I’m trying to find a chile that has a certain taste and aroma, when we were in South Africa I bought a bag of fresh chillis from small farm-stall on the side of the road so I could knock up a sauce to get me through my stay in the Cape. As soon as I cut the chilli open, the smell and flavor took me right back to being a kid and having roties from a West Indian Shop run by this couple from Trinidad. The best way I could describe the the smell and the aroma would be to compare to an habanero or Scotch bonnet but much stronger and fruitier. From my memory and research on the Net the description matches datil peppers. So I have just ordered some seeds, Tobago seasoning pepper, datil, fatilli, devils tongue, and some other Chinense varieties. What will happen if these are all growing in the same garden (600 square meters) at the same time? I really want to grow Datil (if its the one) but would like to try some of the others but don’t want to any changes to quality of the type. What are the risks and options?
Jake
Hello Jake:
Without more description of the pods it is not possible to discover what variety you bought in SA. The aroma of the ’Congo’ pepper from Trinidad is very strong and pungent, and the heat is overwhelming. But if the shape of the pod and the pungency more resembles that of the ’Datil’, then you probably have some variety of Caribbean seasoning pepper, which is pretty mild. The only way to prevent cross-pollination, even in the huge garden you describe is to place netting over the individual plants to keep out insects like bees that would carry pollen from plant to plant.
Dave
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