Old Pepperpot

Red, finger-shaped, sweet pepper (cayenne type). Surprisingly, this pepper had no heat when we grew it in 2019 at Heritage Farm. In 2015, however, it had mild to medium heat. Walls are thin and a little soft. Fruit are not particularly sweet either, and a little bland/sour. Fruit are crinkled and crooked. 2.5-3.5 inches long. Some variability in shape, size and intensity of red color at maturity in variety. Fruit have some degree of corking which also varies from plant to plant. Bushy plants grow up to 3' tall. Late maturing. Low productivity during cool summer of 2019. Donated to SSE by William Woys Weaver (PA WE W) who first offered this variety in the 2005 SSE Exchange where he described it as a pre-1900 variety from his grandfather's collection and one which his grandfather acquired from Horace Pippin. Weaver explains in Heirloom Vegetable Gardening that this variety "was preserved by two families of black Philadelphia caterers, the Augustins, who were famous nationally in the 1800s, and the de Baptistes, who later married into the Augustin clan. The Augustins did not raise the pepper themselves; someone raised it for them under contract." SSE Accession # 118163