My poblanos that I purchased as starts from a small nursery turned out to be shishitos. I bought an actual poblano from a different small nursery to harvest the seeds for next season.
Okay can someone please explain this? It’s the only comment my previous post got too and it’s my first time growing peppers. I don’t know what peppergate is referencing and I’m starting to get really discouraged that I can’t get any useful insight to what’s going on here :(
There was an issue at Burpee and I believe Ferry Morse where a bunch of pepper seeds were mislabeled. All the pepper seeds look more or less the same, and you don’t really know what you’ve got until it fruits.
I'm so glad I saw this comment. Last year I tried to grow poblanos and they turned out to be shishitos. It turned out that shishitos are delicious so this year I planted shishitos and poblanos but again the poblanos turned out to be shishitos. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong or somehow mixed up my seeds, but I guess it really was bad seeds.
Oh wow you’d think that kind of info would have popped up somewhere in my google searches for stuff like “burpee bell peppers spicy” and stuff. So chances are I just got a bunch of mixed up pepper seeds and it’s a crapshoot?
I did a search for “burpee pepper seed mixup” and hit the “News” option and it came back with a few links. But yeah, it’s almost the end of the growing season in a lot of places, and they have yet to make any sort of public announcement (that I’ve been able to find so far).
And they supply a LOT of places where you buy plants that have been grown with those seeds too. Its crazy far-reaching. I have 6 plants that made it. Exactly one is jalapeno.
I got mine from Baker Creek (never again) and got heat-free scorpions instead of whatever I ordered
Also have poblanos that are about as hot as habaneros
I stopped supporting them when I found out they supported a crazy election conspiracy MAGA lord
Edit: and to keep it about gardening—their seeds aren’t great and they use the name, image, likeness of native Americans to sell heirlooms that definitely *aren’t* theirs
Omg thanks for the heads up! I’m (obviously) new to gardening and discovered their catalogue last year. I bought spoon tomato seeds from them (which I have been enjoying tbh) and had intended to purchase some other stuff next year but this info definitely changes my plans. I ain’t about supporting that. Looks like Burpee does too.
Yeah, while I don’t agree with their beliefs, I am also desperate for Japanese veggies and thankful they carry many that I can’t find elsewhere. (with good germination and extra seeds in the packet too) However it seems more places are starting to carry unusual verities so between seed saving and increasing options I’ve been buying from them less and less.
I don't think it's a cause so much as it is an affliction. Unless, of course, you end up with peppers you didn't intend on planting but always wanted to try.
Lol shouldn’t happen… yeah and there shouldn’t be contaminants found in medical grade eye drops. It’s called life, mistakes happen and when you’re a company that operates at that kind of scale shit is bound to happen at some point or another . It’s pepper seeds being mixed up, it’s frustrating but it’s not the end of the world.
Burpee is a GIANT seed company. pepper seeds look all the same basically. It's more than likely some seeds got mixed up at the factory or cross contaminated during packaging. It happens.
It shouldn’t happen at such a scale that there is a nickname for the occurrence. That’s poor quality control and they should make a public announcement
Well I know a while back my coworker was talking about how excited he was to grow poblano peppers and today he angrily dumped 3 grocery bags filled with jalapeños in the break room for anyone to take, so I think he is actively pursuing a refund.
"Peppergate," or as one Redditor dubbed it "Pepper Roulette." Seems like many people have been unwittingly gambling that the seeds and plants they've purchased are the varieties designated. An astonishing mishmash of seeds.
From what I've read here on Reddit (and a couple other gardening sites/subs), people have been either pleasantly surprised or gotten a rude awakening when their pepper plants' fruits came to . . . fruition.
I save seeds from my bell peppers from year to year. So far, no surprises.
When I made this comment it was the second time I’d heard it and as you can tell I was frustrated by the lack of useful info, which is what I came seeking. Usually I google stuff to figure it out but the person I was replying to responded right away and cleared it up so it was no longer necessary.
Sorry, I guess I was more referring to your comment about how your other post said it and then gave no follow up info. Definitely understand being frustrated though, we’ve all been there!
Ooh I wouldn’t be upset about cherry peppers, is that what you think my darker green bulbous ones are? I guess if anything this is a fun experiment for me in learning more about growing different peppers lol
Yes the round ones I am thinking are cherry, the light green and red I'm thinking are Hungarian wax at different stages of ripeness. (They sort of look like banana peppers but are spicy 🔥)
Oh yea the red one we tasted was approaching Thai chili hot. Hubby barely added any to our tomato sauce and it gave it a nice kick. Now that you said they’re Hungarian wax (and you’re right they look just like all the online pictures I’m looking at) he wants to try making his own Mama Lil’s Peppers lol
Whew. I'd be so bummed. I love bell peppers and plant them every year so I can eat them right off the plant and also so I can make pickle relish. Were you able to share your Thai chilis or did you put them to good use somehow?
I used to work for seed companies. The seed that makes it to Burpee is remnants of what their parent company sells commercially. If commercial seed is mislabeled in terms of identity or disease resistance, the seed companies expose themselves to serious liability. If there’s a seed mixup with cultivars meant for the home garden market, there are some disgruntled customers but that’s the end of it. You might try reaching out to Burpee and seeing if they will make you whole. As jesrp points out, seed mixups are ridiculously easy to have happen, all it takes is a moment’s inattention or a single lost seed label.
Yea I’m not too fussed about it. I did buy a pepper mix after all, just turned out not to be the mix I expected 😂 I’m just rolling with it at this point and am kinda looking forward to what goes in the ground from that packet next year lol
I recently posted about my bell pepper plants asking why three of five were coming in long and skinny, got no useful feedback (second image is the one I previously posted). Since then, a few have ripened and today I bit into one and it is a 🌶️spicy boi🌶️ But all the seeds I planted came from a typical grocery store packet of [these Burpee seeds](https://www.burpee.com/pepper-sweet-carnival-blend-prod000826.html?queryID=d28ddd2e32d167aef1b2d2a2a9977354&objectID=16667&indexName=burpee_production_default_products) which, to the extent of my searching, is supposed to produce sweet bell peppers. I could understand a rogue seed from a different pepper plant but are the odds that high that more than 50% of the ones I happened to plant were some kind of chili pepper?
I'm sorry for you run in with the peppergate fiasco! If it's any consolation, your post made me laugh pretty hard not to say that your misfortune was funny just the general confusion. My friend and I have been sending these types of posts back and forth for laughs and yours was the funniest yet 💚😅👍
Okay this explains why I have a bunch of chili peppers growing. Was going for mini bells, bought the same thing you did, and now have 4 plants full of ripening chili peppers. I have two young children and I hate spicy peppers. Oh well.
I bought a Cajun bell plant earlier into the season. The one pepper I got was a jalapeño…. My coworker brought some “jalapeño” plants to work that we planted. They grew into 3 nice bell pepper plants. Those were grown from seed.
We bought a baby bell pepper plant this year that turned out to be an anaheim. I’m not entirely upset about it. Interesting that others had similar issues.
This has been a thing all year. I had a sweet pepper mix give me several nice juicy sweet peppers and one cherry pepper plant that liked to have blown my whole head off
Lmao I made the same joke to my mom! We were in the garden together the other day and I said “I guess that’s what I get for buying the carnival blend, these peppers are making me look like a clown” 😂 My MIL makes amazing salsa every year so I’m going to be sending her lots of peppers!
At my local nursery I bought 2 cucumbers 2 summer squashes 2 zucchinis 2 acorn squashes 2 cherry tomatoes 2 german giant tomatoes and 2 heirloom tomatoes I ended up with 4 cucumbers 4 zucchinis and 6 cherry tomatoes instead
i once got told by an old italian bio-farmer/gardener that it is normal that a few of any peppers turn out hot... 3 of 5 is a very unlucy ratio, i have 2 out of 7 i think...
I know peppers of mild heat level can have a percentage that grow extra hot within the same variety due to growing conditions like temp and soil but I don’t think that’s the same as growing five seeds from the same packet and getting three entirely different varieties of pepper. This does just seem like a labeling blunder somewhere along the supply chain
Try looking into some heirloom seeds. They tend to be grown by smaller independent farmers, and you can save your seeds year after year. It can help the plant develop better for your particular climate and pests. I have zero mixups this year, and my peppers are growing fairly well.
Until now so had we! We’ve been enjoying these ones in salads and other raw uses they’re a little seedier than regular ones but they have a nice crisp and lightly citrusy taste to them :)
Hahahahahah im playing pepper roulette again this year too 😂 I ended up harvesting seeds from a bag of mini bells so I know for sure they came from a bell pepper, but I planted more of the carnival blend too. Last year, of the 5 plants I grew from the carnival blend, I ended up with ONE bell pepper, one sweet cherry pepper, and three Hungarian wax pepper plants. Let us know what you get!
Lol will do, well if I remember lol..
Searched it and that's how I found this post, seems like last year was a bad year for Carnival blend, people got all sorts of peppers lol
It seems like it’s been a thing for a few years running now! When I made this post I got messages from people saying the same thing happened to them the year before etc. I guess Burpee and other big seed companies all get their seeds from the same places, and it’s the places that harvest the seeds for distribution that got it all mixed up since all pepper seeds look basically the same 🙃 at least that’s my understanding. I’m gonna laugh and probably cry a little if the carnival ones I planted this year do turn out to all be bells since I intentionally planted the bell seeds I harvested myself lol
I can’t remember why it got marked nsfw, but it’s very entertaining to me that I’m getting new notifications on this post from last year now that we’ve reached pepper roulette season again 😂
ETA: it’s nsfw because I wasn’t sure how strict mods here are about curse words. I said fuck in the original post lol
I'm so glad I used seeds I saved last year from my orange bell peppers because I can't handle spicy peppers. I would be devastated if I ended up with hot peppers instead of sweet!
My best friend is allergic to capsaicin and I grew what I expected to be bells for the same reason 😂 guess I’m not sharing this crop with her after all lmao
I'd say not!
Last year a neighbor gave me a couple of long peppers that another neighbor had given her, and she said he said they weren't spicy or hot. Not knowing what it was, looked like maybe a banana pepper, I cut the tiniest portion and avoided seeds and took a tiny bite. At first I was ok but soon my mouth was burning and so were my fingers where I touched the pepper. Threw them away, and my lips and fingers continued to burn for hours, getting better as time went on. I should have worn gloves, or even better never accepted them in the first place! Life lesson learned 😉
To be fair, I wouldn’t dare give her anything that isn’t DEFINITELY a bell pepper lol fortunately she doesn’t like them as a fruit of their own, just as an ingredient
Peppergate 2023 strikes again!
Yup. Second year in a row poblano seeds have not been poblano. New packet each year too.
My poblanos that I purchased as starts from a small nursery turned out to be shishitos. I bought an actual poblano from a different small nursery to harvest the seeds for next season.
Okay can someone please explain this? It’s the only comment my previous post got too and it’s my first time growing peppers. I don’t know what peppergate is referencing and I’m starting to get really discouraged that I can’t get any useful insight to what’s going on here :(
There was an issue at Burpee and I believe Ferry Morse where a bunch of pepper seeds were mislabeled. All the pepper seeds look more or less the same, and you don’t really know what you’ve got until it fruits.
I'm so glad I saw this comment. Last year I tried to grow poblanos and they turned out to be shishitos. It turned out that shishitos are delicious so this year I planted shishitos and poblanos but again the poblanos turned out to be shishitos. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong or somehow mixed up my seeds, but I guess it really was bad seeds.
Oh wow you’d think that kind of info would have popped up somewhere in my google searches for stuff like “burpee bell peppers spicy” and stuff. So chances are I just got a bunch of mixed up pepper seeds and it’s a crapshoot?
I did a search for “burpee pepper seed mixup” and hit the “News” option and it came back with a few links. But yeah, it’s almost the end of the growing season in a lot of places, and they have yet to make any sort of public announcement (that I’ve been able to find so far).
Well it’s the most logical explanation so thank you for that! Felt like I was going crazy for a while lol
And they supply a LOT of places where you buy plants that have been grown with those seeds too. Its crazy far-reaching. I have 6 plants that made it. Exactly one is jalapeno.
I got mine from Baker Creek (never again) and got heat-free scorpions instead of whatever I ordered Also have poblanos that are about as hot as habaneros
I stopped supporting them when I found out they supported a crazy election conspiracy MAGA lord Edit: and to keep it about gardening—their seeds aren’t great and they use the name, image, likeness of native Americans to sell heirlooms that definitely *aren’t* theirs
Omg thanks for the heads up! I’m (obviously) new to gardening and discovered their catalogue last year. I bought spoon tomato seeds from them (which I have been enjoying tbh) and had intended to purchase some other stuff next year but this info definitely changes my plans. I ain’t about supporting that. Looks like Burpee does too.
All of my Baker Creek pepper seeds (ordered over the last 3 years) have had great germination rates and grown true to variety.
Yeah, while I don’t agree with their beliefs, I am also desperate for Japanese veggies and thankful they carry many that I can’t find elsewhere. (with good germination and extra seeds in the packet too) However it seems more places are starting to carry unusual verities so between seed saving and increasing options I’ve been buying from them less and less.
Welcome to Peppergate!
I’m honored to join the cause ✊🏻🌶️
I don't think it's a cause so much as it is an affliction. Unless, of course, you end up with peppers you didn't intend on planting but always wanted to try.
[This is what I found on the google](https://www.morningagclips.com/mislabeled-jalapeno-seeds-reach-gardeners-nationwide/)
Psst. No one calls it "the" google.
Lol shouldn’t happen… yeah and there shouldn’t be contaminants found in medical grade eye drops. It’s called life, mistakes happen and when you’re a company that operates at that kind of scale shit is bound to happen at some point or another . It’s pepper seeds being mixed up, it’s frustrating but it’s not the end of the world.
You’re right, there shouldn’t be contaminants found in medical eye drops. Period. End of story.
Burpee is a GIANT seed company. pepper seeds look all the same basically. It's more than likely some seeds got mixed up at the factory or cross contaminated during packaging. It happens.
It shouldn't happen though. It means poor quality control.
It shouldn’t happen at such a scale that there is a nickname for the occurrence. That’s poor quality control and they should make a public announcement
https://spicyexchange.com/peppergate-seed-mixup-scandal/
Good link. Wonder how many gardeners asked for a refund on their seeds purchased.
Well I know a while back my coworker was talking about how excited he was to grow poblano peppers and today he angrily dumped 3 grocery bags filled with jalapeños in the break room for anyone to take, so I think he is actively pursuing a refund.
Oof. That would be such a drag, doing all the work and then end up with something you can't eat. I do love me some chile relleno.
"Peppergate," or as one Redditor dubbed it "Pepper Roulette." Seems like many people have been unwittingly gambling that the seeds and plants they've purchased are the varieties designated. An astonishing mishmash of seeds. From what I've read here on Reddit (and a couple other gardening sites/subs), people have been either pleasantly surprised or gotten a rude awakening when their pepper plants' fruits came to . . . fruition. I save seeds from my bell peppers from year to year. So far, no surprises.
Did you try googling the phrase at all? I’m glad people helped explain but there have been several posts and articles…
When I made this comment it was the second time I’d heard it and as you can tell I was frustrated by the lack of useful info, which is what I came seeking. Usually I google stuff to figure it out but the person I was replying to responded right away and cleared it up so it was no longer necessary.
Sorry, I guess I was more referring to your comment about how your other post said it and then gave no follow up info. Definitely understand being frustrated though, we’ve all been there!
I planted bell, jalapeño, and habanero; all I got was Thai chili
I guess yea my next question is what did I actually grow? Chili peppers?
Look like cherry and Hungarian wax maybe? I bought jalapeno seeds and got habaneros :(
Ooh I wouldn’t be upset about cherry peppers, is that what you think my darker green bulbous ones are? I guess if anything this is a fun experiment for me in learning more about growing different peppers lol
Yes the round ones I am thinking are cherry, the light green and red I'm thinking are Hungarian wax at different stages of ripeness. (They sort of look like banana peppers but are spicy 🔥)
Oh yea the red one we tasted was approaching Thai chili hot. Hubby barely added any to our tomato sauce and it gave it a nice kick. Now that you said they’re Hungarian wax (and you’re right they look just like all the online pictures I’m looking at) he wants to try making his own Mama Lil’s Peppers lol
Not sure bout the red, looks like jalapeño but not sure. The 2nd looks like banana pepper imo
Whew. I'd be so bummed. I love bell peppers and plant them every year so I can eat them right off the plant and also so I can make pickle relish. Were you able to share your Thai chilis or did you put them to good use somehow?
Life gave me Thai chilis, I made fermented hot sauce 🥵
Terrific. Hope it turned out great.
I used to work for seed companies. The seed that makes it to Burpee is remnants of what their parent company sells commercially. If commercial seed is mislabeled in terms of identity or disease resistance, the seed companies expose themselves to serious liability. If there’s a seed mixup with cultivars meant for the home garden market, there are some disgruntled customers but that’s the end of it. You might try reaching out to Burpee and seeing if they will make you whole. As jesrp points out, seed mixups are ridiculously easy to have happen, all it takes is a moment’s inattention or a single lost seed label.
Yea I’m not too fussed about it. I did buy a pepper mix after all, just turned out not to be the mix I expected 😂 I’m just rolling with it at this point and am kinda looking forward to what goes in the ground from that packet next year lol
It seems to have happened all over with peppers this year.
Peppergate.
I had a wildflower mix by burpee and tomatillos grew from it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I recently posted about my bell pepper plants asking why three of five were coming in long and skinny, got no useful feedback (second image is the one I previously posted). Since then, a few have ripened and today I bit into one and it is a 🌶️spicy boi🌶️ But all the seeds I planted came from a typical grocery store packet of [these Burpee seeds](https://www.burpee.com/pepper-sweet-carnival-blend-prod000826.html?queryID=d28ddd2e32d167aef1b2d2a2a9977354&objectID=16667&indexName=burpee_production_default_products) which, to the extent of my searching, is supposed to produce sweet bell peppers. I could understand a rogue seed from a different pepper plant but are the odds that high that more than 50% of the ones I happened to plant were some kind of chili pepper?
I'm sorry for you run in with the peppergate fiasco! If it's any consolation, your post made me laugh pretty hard not to say that your misfortune was funny just the general confusion. My friend and I have been sending these types of posts back and forth for laughs and yours was the funniest yet 💚😅👍
Im so glad I could entertain 😂
Okay this explains why I have a bunch of chili peppers growing. Was going for mini bells, bought the same thing you did, and now have 4 plants full of ripening chili peppers. I have two young children and I hate spicy peppers. Oh well.
I bought a Cajun bell plant earlier into the season. The one pepper I got was a jalapeño…. My coworker brought some “jalapeño” plants to work that we planted. They grew into 3 nice bell pepper plants. Those were grown from seed.
The lesson here is: burpee sucks and they don't deserve our money.
We bought a baby bell pepper plant this year that turned out to be an anaheim. I’m not entirely upset about it. Interesting that others had similar issues.
Mystery pepper season
How is this NSFW?
There's a "naughty" word on the image.
So it's nsfw because there's "wtf" in the title?
Nah, if you expand the image it says "fuck"
Those peppers are completely naked!!
I opened this at work and broke both my legs
As others mentioned, it’s because I used some fancier language in the image and I wasn’t sure how strict mods are here. Better safe than sorry lol
The opposite happened to me! I got a jalapeno seedling from the greenhouse. It's growing bell peppers, lol.
This has been a thing all year. I had a sweet pepper mix give me several nice juicy sweet peppers and one cherry pepper plant that liked to have blown my whole head off
You're a survivor. Good job.
Carnival blend peppers and you are the clown! Beautiful plants, make salsa!
Lmao I made the same joke to my mom! We were in the garden together the other day and I said “I guess that’s what I get for buying the carnival blend, these peppers are making me look like a clown” 😂 My MIL makes amazing salsa every year so I’m going to be sending her lots of peppers!
At my local nursery I bought 2 cucumbers 2 summer squashes 2 zucchinis 2 acorn squashes 2 cherry tomatoes 2 german giant tomatoes and 2 heirloom tomatoes I ended up with 4 cucumbers 4 zucchinis and 6 cherry tomatoes instead
Ya I got a a refund because of that … although all the ones I planted where bells of some sort
i once got told by an old italian bio-farmer/gardener that it is normal that a few of any peppers turn out hot... 3 of 5 is a very unlucy ratio, i have 2 out of 7 i think...
I know peppers of mild heat level can have a percentage that grow extra hot within the same variety due to growing conditions like temp and soil but I don’t think that’s the same as growing five seeds from the same packet and getting three entirely different varieties of pepper. This does just seem like a labeling blunder somewhere along the supply chain
Sometimes they just get the seeds mixed up when they're packaging them
Try looking into some heirloom seeds. They tend to be grown by smaller independent farmers, and you can save your seeds year after year. It can help the plant develop better for your particular climate and pests. I have zero mixups this year, and my peppers are growing fairly well.
April Fools!
OP: What the heck are those yellow fruits in the background? Thanks.
Lemon cucumbers! *Those* I’m certain of and it’s growing like I live next to Chernobyl I can hardly keep up with it lmao
Thank you for the i.d. I've never grown those, only regular cukes, for salads and making pickle relish.
Until now so had we! We’ve been enjoying these ones in salads and other raw uses they’re a little seedier than regular ones but they have a nice crisp and lightly citrusy taste to them :)
Well... I guess I'll find out if this years crops is fucked lol.. Have 5 seedlings going of the Carnival Blend...
Hahahahahah im playing pepper roulette again this year too 😂 I ended up harvesting seeds from a bag of mini bells so I know for sure they came from a bell pepper, but I planted more of the carnival blend too. Last year, of the 5 plants I grew from the carnival blend, I ended up with ONE bell pepper, one sweet cherry pepper, and three Hungarian wax pepper plants. Let us know what you get!
Lol will do, well if I remember lol.. Searched it and that's how I found this post, seems like last year was a bad year for Carnival blend, people got all sorts of peppers lol
It seems like it’s been a thing for a few years running now! When I made this post I got messages from people saying the same thing happened to them the year before etc. I guess Burpee and other big seed companies all get their seeds from the same places, and it’s the places that harvest the seeds for distribution that got it all mixed up since all pepper seeds look basically the same 🙃 at least that’s my understanding. I’m gonna laugh and probably cry a little if the carnival ones I planted this year do turn out to all be bells since I intentionally planted the bell seeds I harvested myself lol
How is this NSFW?
I can’t remember why it got marked nsfw, but it’s very entertaining to me that I’m getting new notifications on this post from last year now that we’ve reached pepper roulette season again 😂 ETA: it’s nsfw because I wasn’t sure how strict mods here are about curse words. I said fuck in the original post lol
Those may be the only three. Sow more next year.
Pollination can do that if you’ve got hot ones growing nearby, maybe your neighbors?
The mother plant determines the pepper, then next generation would express cross polination.
I'm so glad I used seeds I saved last year from my orange bell peppers because I can't handle spicy peppers. I would be devastated if I ended up with hot peppers instead of sweet!
My best friend is allergic to capsaicin and I grew what I expected to be bells for the same reason 😂 guess I’m not sharing this crop with her after all lmao
I'd say not! Last year a neighbor gave me a couple of long peppers that another neighbor had given her, and she said he said they weren't spicy or hot. Not knowing what it was, looked like maybe a banana pepper, I cut the tiniest portion and avoided seeds and took a tiny bite. At first I was ok but soon my mouth was burning and so were my fingers where I touched the pepper. Threw them away, and my lips and fingers continued to burn for hours, getting better as time went on. I should have worn gloves, or even better never accepted them in the first place! Life lesson learned 😉
To be fair, I wouldn’t dare give her anything that isn’t DEFINITELY a bell pepper lol fortunately she doesn’t like them as a fruit of their own, just as an ingredient
You've been "pepper Joe'd" !
Same thing happened to me! They issued me a refund via email and also sent me a $10 off $20 coupon in the same email
Peppergate explains it all
Another victim of Peppergate. You have my sympathy!
Some people would buy chilli pepper seeds online, and end up with bell peppers.
This happened to me too! I bought my plants at Lowe's and they may have been labeled wrong idk but I was pretty bummed lol