The Beet: A Podcast For Plant Lovers · Epic Gardening

Grow Super Hot Peppers with Jason Tate

·58 min·3 clips

Wrinkly or bubbly pepper leaves usually point to calcium deficiency, but mites can cause similar damage.

The episode kicks off with a pepper-focused check-in. Kevin brings in Jason Tate to talk about growing unique, rare, super hot peppers and getting seedlings off to a strong start. Jason runs Bojica Pepper Hut. He says the business began with superhots, then expanded into mild and medium peppers as demand grew, but the heart of it is still the hotter end of the range. The episode stays hands-on from there. Kevin keeps the focus on seed starting and transplanting, which gives the discussion a practical feel and makes it useful for gardeners learning the pace of pepper care. Yellow leaves become the main warning sign. Jason and Kevin talk through how that color change can point to different problems, including magnesium or sulfur issues, low nitrogen, and not enough water, so the answer is less about guessing and more about reading the plant. The fix is not always complicated. Jason says a balanced fertilizer in the 5-5-5 to 10-10-10 range can help when the soil is short on nutrients, and he treats it like a straightforward adjustment rather than a special remedy. He has seen it firsthand. He describes a stretch when the middles of his plants were yellowing, went to a local nursery, learned that nitrogen was the missing piece, and watched the plants bounce back within a couple of days. Watering gets the same careful treatment. Too little water can yellow peppers, but too much can cause its own damage, and the signs may show up as drooping, spots, or brown specks instead of the same pale color. That means observation matters. Kevin points out that you need a basic gardening eye to tell one problem from another, and Jason agrees that the leaves and the soil give better clues than a quick guess. The tone stays friendly throughout. Even when the talk gets technical, it keeps circling back to what a grower can do right now in the yard, at the nursery, or with the next round of watering and feeding. The episode closes by pointing listeners toward Epic Gardening's broader guides. Kevin says more complete pepper resources are on the way, mentions the YouTube channel, and invites questions by email, so it ends with the usual open-door, keep-growing kind of sendoff.

As heard by us

A practical pepper primer that focuses on seed starting, transplanting, and what yellow leaves can mean.

Pepper growing is treated as a working craft rather than a hobbyist flourish, with Kevin bringing on Jason Tate of Bojica Pepper Hut to cover super hot peppers, seed starting, and transplanting.

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Need a fast pepper primer before your seedlings start sulking?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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