Banana pepper plants

Long, curved, and sweet. This is the banana you pickle, not the one that bites.

By Debra Austin

Species: Capsicum annuum

Sweet banana, not hot wax

A sweet banana pepper is a Capsicum annuum with a thick wall and a long curve, ripening from pale yellow toward orange. The one we grow is Orange Sweet Banana, listed at 500 SHU. That is mild. You can eat it raw.

There is a hot pepper with the same silhouette, usually sold as Hungarian wax. We do not grow that one. If a banana-shaped pod burns, it is not this plant.

Why the wall thickness matters

The flesh is the point. It holds up in a pickle jar, on a grill, and stuffed. A cayenne dries because its wall is thin. A banana does the opposite. It stays juicy.

We list the same variety twice when both a seedling and an established plant are in the catalog. Same pepper, different age of plant.

How hot a sweet banana is

Orange Sweet Banana is listed at 500 SHU. That is mild. A Hungarian wax can look the same and run past 10,000. We do not grow the wax. If a recipe needs heat, this is the wrong plant.

Growing them

Treat it like any easy annuum. Ordinary potting mix, a 3 to 5 gallon pot, sun, and steady water. They crop early relative to a chinense and they do not ask you to wait out a superhot season.

Pick them once the color has moved off green. Green pods are edible and flatter. The orange stage is the one the variety is named for.

banana pepper on WikiPepper

The Banana we grow

Questions people ask

How hot is the banana pepper you sell?

Orange Sweet Banana is listed at 500 SHU. That is the sweet kind.

Do you sell a hot banana pepper?

No. The only banana in the shop is Orange Sweet Banana.

What species is it?

Capsicum annuum.