Pepper, Shishito

Capsicum annuum

There's a reason the shishito bandwagon is packed to the brim...these delicious frying peppers are flavorful as heck and mostly mild with a one-in-ten chance of a hottie. Fry up a batch and play some roulette with your friends! Hailing from East Asia, these long, skinny, wrinkled peppers are typically picked green and fried or grilled to bring out their superb flavor. When frying in oil, cut a one inch slit into the fruit to allow steam to escape. Highly productive plants produce for months with continuous picking. 60 days to green peppers, 80 to red.

Seeds grown by Swift River Farm in Salmon, Idaho.

30 seeds.

Indigenous people in modern-day Mexico domesticated chiles from their wild crop ancestor the Chiltepin thousands of years ago, adapting it into so many unique and delicious varieties. When the European colonizers came, they took chiles back to Europe, referring to them as peppers because of their spicy flavor, which reminded them of peppercorns. Now chiles are beloved and cultivated by cultures all over the world, and despite the devastating legacy of colonization, the descendants of their original seed stewards continue to persist and cultivate them today.

Directions: Start seeds indoors 8 weeks before last frost. Use bottom heat to aid germination and be patient. Transplant after frost.