Pursuits - Kitchen Garden
I first came across Padrón peppers in a tapas bar in Santiago de Compostela, north-west Spain, not far from the town where they were first grown in Europe and which gives the peppers their name. I have been growing them in an unheated greenhouse for the past ten years, and their popularity is now such that they are available in some supermarkets.
We picked our first Padróns this year in the second week of July and enjoyed them in the traditional way, fried in olive oil, with sea salt. They are classified as chilli peppers but are not especially hot until they mature and turn red later in the year. However, they are also known as the ‘Russian roulette chilli’, as you may hit on a fiery one when it’s still green – though without quite the same lethal consequences.
A packet of French seeds advises pruning the stem of the plant once ten peppers have formed in order to produce larger specimens. I have no reason to do that, as we crop all we need and leave a few to grow larger and redder. If too hot to eat, they look well on the plant when brought indoors in October.
If you’re sowing Padrón seeds in early spring, they will need a temperature of 18°-20° C. I tend to buy small plug plants from Simpson’s near Warminster, Wiltshire. They stock about 70 varieties of chilli peppers, including Habanero Katie, said to be the hottest chilli grown in Britain.
Once the plants have been potted on, they should give little trouble. Grow bags are an option but, in my experience, eight-inch pots have been more successful. If an infestation of whitefly starts to appear on the leaves, put the plants outside for a couple of days so that the ladybirds can get to work on them.
If you have a surfeit of chilli peppers, you can hang them up to dry, or – as we do every autumn – add them to the juice of crab apples to make a jelly, delicious with roast guinea fowl or partridge.
The Oldie September 2024
