Trial: Annual

Years Trialed: 2006

Good Qualities

Different! Best day selling them was when the Laotian needlework vendor came up to me and said “We EAT this!!” and proceeded to give me a recipe, lovely, really with green to orange fruits against a black stem; Unique plant; Interesting fruit, good color; Fun- sticks look great in an urn or suitable vase, dark stems contrast nicely with the vivid pumpkins in all shades of ripening; Lasts an incredibly long time fresh, easy to grow, plant it and forget it till its time to harvest, easy to germinate; Consumers loved these little peppers in fall- so cute!; This is just a fun plant to grow and customers really love using it, we planted it in black plastic this year and it loved it – growing four feet tall.

Problems

Thorns (8), as brutal as rose thorns; Large plants hide fruit until harvest, different rates of fruit coloring can be an advantage, I suppose, if multiple harvests are done; I wish they kept better, I did not have the best season for them – also, since I couldn’t get a lot per stem, they have a low sq. ft. price for the length of time in the ground; I sell to a summer market – these would do better for fall; So much rain this year, there was some rot; Leaves were large – about the size of a lady’s hand and had thorns on undersides! Leaves had to be stripped off, very top heavy in the vase though the woody stems held up held up pretty nicely in the field, had to cut with loppers! Some stems toppled with the weight but stems were still saleable; All plants lost to hard frost Sept. 9 (Zone 4) before any harvestable stems developed!; Needs lots of support; Colorado potato bugs decimated the plants; Bugs love this plant!; Unable to grow/sell, bloomed on 6 inch stems, I’m pretty sure it was due to my growing of it, I don’t know what I did wrong, but I had understood that this was an easy plant to grow from seed, I did try to follow our culture sheet directions.

Postharvest

I did not place in water, stems of “pumpkins” held for weeks out of water – pumpkins would continue to ripen and change color, very slowly they dehydrate and take on a new attractiveness and character of wrinkliness!; Doesn’t need anything special.

Comments

Cucumber beetles loved the large leaves; Planted it and didn’t spray it, harvested last week, not my favorite plant – these did not seem as thorny as other time I grew it, was it a selection for no thorns? I think I need to remove early flowers to get fruit higher up to color by fall, green fruit was acceptable to florists (via wholesale buyer) as were green ornamental peppers, lime green color is not in demand this summer, darker green is (as in peppers above); I tried to grow some on white plastic and some on bare ground, as heat lovers, I think the plastic was a mistake, but the ones on plastic rotted less, the rot of early fruits before it was time to market them was a real pity; Really like these- wish the fruit set higher on the stem; This was actually the 2nd year I grew these, first year I made the big mistake of planting with support net! Do not plant these thorny devils in support net! I sold nicely fruited stems as stems, I cut less desirable stems into sections of 2-3 fruits plus a bit of stem, customers liked the choice – as a vase item or tucked into flat table-top arrangements; Maybe not good for zone 4; I grew this last year with spectacular results, this year’s plants went in late, and then the Colorado potato beetles killed most of them before we found an effective control, those that survived bloomed, but haven’t developed fruit, not sure why, next year I’ll get it right!; Needs support net in hoop house; We didn’t have to wait for it to turn orange, my customers liked it green too; Very susceptible to both the flea beetles and blister beetles.

Trial Data

¹1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the best. Market ratings are based on sales to wholesalers, retailers, or final consumers direct.

Supplier

Fred C. Gloeckner Company
600 Mamaroneck Ave.
Harrison, NY 10528-1613
www.fredgloeckner.com