Growers and Shops We Like
We do not breed anything. We buy seed from people who do, grow it out in South Texas, and sell you the plant. Everyone below either sold us seed or let us use their photographs.
Seed houses
- Welsh Dragon Chilli (43 varieties of ours). Chris Fowler in Wales. One long page, no shop software, decades of work on it. Several of the Sugar Rush line trace back to him.
- Red Dragon Seeds (120 varieties of ours). More of our catalogue starts here than anywhere else. A deep list of the rare and the barely known, and the descriptions read like somebody who has actually grown the plant wrote them.
- Fatalii Seeds (17 varieties of ours). Jukka Kilpinen in Finland. The reference site for wild species and the odd corners of the genus, and the photography is the best in the business.
- Matt's Peppers (15 varieties of ours). His own crosses and selections, named for him and labelled honestly. The shop closes out of season rather than sell you something he has not grown.
- Pepper Merchant (4 varieties of ours). Where we go for the superhot crosses that never reach the bigger catalogues.
- Bohica Pepper Hut (3 varieties of ours). Long running and reliable, and the rocoto selections are worth the visit on their own.
- HR Seeds. John Tetor. One of the widest rare-pepper lists anywhere, including the wild species and the older named lines that drop out of most catalogues.
- Pepper Guru. Travels to find varieties at the source and brings the seed back. A shop and a growing community in one.
- Chile Seeds. UK stockist of the hot end of the genus. Reaper, Naga Viper, Naga Morich, Bhut Jolokia, and they have been at it long enough to be trusted on which is which.
- The Chile Woman. Thirty-four years in business in Indiana, shipping live plants rather than seed. Flood, drought and a tornado in the middle of shipping season have not stopped her yet.
- Scoville Republic. Sauces, seed and spice, with chilli biltong on the side.
- Pepper Friends. The Italian growers' community. Claudio and Stefania's photographs are the reason half the European varieties are identifiable at all.
Sellers on Etsy
- MikesPepperSeeds (16 varieties of ours). Rare and open pollinated, out of Colorado. The variegated work is the draw.
- SeeingRedPeppers (16 varieties of ours). A pepper farm in Illinois with a list that changes faster than we can keep up with.
- NativePlantWorx (3 varieties of ours). Organic seed out of Lake Mary, Florida. The peppadew types germinated cleanly for us.
- MayflowerTrail (2 varieties of ours). Sterling Heights, Michigan. Straightforward, fairly priced, honest counts in the packet.
- HotPepperSeedsShop (2 varieties of ours). Oklahoma City. Mild through to the genuinely unpleasant, all of it labelled properly.
- HeirSeeds (1 variety of ours). Deland, Florida. Heirlooms and the older named lines.
- SeedObsession (1 variety of ours). Indianapolis. Grown in their own garden, which shows in the germination.
- LilburnPeppers (1 variety of ours). Georgia. The place to find the twisted baccatums nobody else bothers with.
- PeppersAnyHow (1 variety of ours). Maryland. Seeds, sauces and spice under one roof.
- TAPepperCom (1 variety of ours). Isolated seed, which matters more than most sellers admit.
- ScotchieDaddyPeppers. Lake Wales, Florida. Jamaican scotch bonnets, which is the whole shop and the right way to run one.
- BridgeCityGreens. Pittsburgh. Superhots and premium seed.
- PoppaPepper. Baltimore. Open pollinated, non-GMO, harvested by hand.
- SeedCult. Fort Myers, Florida. Rare seed, plants and botanicals, trading since 2018.
- PanAsiaHeirloom. Wilmington, Illinois. Asian vegetable and herb seed, and the chilli end of it is worth a look.
- PupperPeppers. Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Rare hot pepper seed, and the shop runs for a good cause.
- SherwoodsSeeds. Fallsington, Pennsylvania. Rare heirlooms and proven producers, with the review count to back it.
- PeppersandPotsStore. Fresh peppers, seed and pots.
- CarolinasParadise. Peppers and a growing tomato habit.
What we read and watch
- ChilliChump. Shaun Woodward films what actually happens over a season, fermentation included, and shows the failures as well as the harvests. The most useful growing channel there is.
- Cayenne Diane. Diane writes about peppers for people who cook with them. Good on what a variety is for once it comes off the plant.
- Permies. The permaculture and homesteading forums. They already garden for years rather than for a season, which is our whole argument about peppers: it is a perennial, and November only kills it if you let it.
- WikiPepper. A free database of pepper varieties with nothing for sale on it. We check species, heat ranges and synonyms against it, and every one of our product pages links to the record for that variety.
- The Chile Pepper Institute. The non-profit at New Mexico State University. Where the actual research lives, as opposed to what gets repeated about it.