When I eat a hot pepper, I go into violent hiccups so I tread lightly when I am offered one. (Oddly enough, I was starting to react the same way when consuming sweet peppers but now no longer have that reaction.)
Because of my allergic reaction, I generally do not plant hot peppers.
However, I have the greatest respect for this great vegetable when used in sparingly in sauces, vegetable stir-fries, and casserole dishes. Therefore on some occasion, I will add one of the milder hot peppers or a dash of Tabasco sauce to spice up a recipe.
Capsaicin is the product in the hot peppers, which causes the burning sensation. This burning sensation is fondly called "heat." The sweet bell and other sweet peppers do not have capsaicin hence they are tolerable for most of us to eat.
Capsaicin is tasteless; however, it does a cause a reaction to the pain receptors in the mouth, eyes or skin. To rate the degrees of capsaicin heat, in 1912, Wilbur Scoville created the Scoville heat scale. Though the methods of determining Scoville units has changed, the scale still runs from 0-16,000,000 heat units.
Sweet peppers have a rating of zero Scoville heat units; pimento and banana peppers have a rating of 100-500 Scoville heat units; the pepper product Tabasco sauce and Cayenne peppers have Scoville heat unit ratings of 2,500-8,000 units. And as a person with the violent reaction of hiccups, I cannot conceive of eating peppers with Scoville heat ratings of 855,000 to 1,460, 000 heat units. (Police pepper spray has 5,000,000 heat units!)
To grow hot peppers, the cultural requirements are the same for sweet peppers and tomatoes.
Choose a site with full sun where the soil is moisture retentive but well draining.
Only if you plan on collecting pepper seeds avoid planting sweet peppers and hot peppers in the garden close to each other. These two varieties of peppers can cross-pollinate and you may end up with a sweet looking pepper plant next year that may turn out being hot!
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