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Pepper Plants Are Hot Commodities

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By LENORA LAKE

Tribune correspondent

Published: July 9, 2008

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - Caring for more than 2,500 pepper plants takes "every waking minute" that Don Swanson is not at work.

The 50-year-old optician owns Mild to Wild Pepper Plants, which he operates on nights and weekends from his Seminole Heights home. This weekend, he will be among about 30 vendors in the 10th annual Tropical Plant Fair at the University of South Florida Botanical Gardens.

His backyard collection includes about 600 plants in 1-gallon containers and 2,000 starter plants. There are more than 100 varieties sitting on the rows of handmade benches.

"I've literally built the nursery paycheck to paycheck," Swanson said. He also built it with a lot of scrap lumber.

"I'd see a load of lumber on the side of the road and would throw it in the van. I have built all the tables out of scrap lumber," Swanson said.

Originally from Philadelphia, Swanson was raised in North Tampa and graduated from Hillsborough High School in 1975.

"My dad grew roses and always had a garden; I guess I got my green thumb from him," Swanson said.

He started growing vegetables from seed in containers several years ago and began a weekend flea market business called Dirt Cheap Edible Plants.

"What was really selling the best were the pepper plants," he said, adding that he began concentrating on peppers and started selling at area plant shows in early 2007.

His best seller has been the California Wonder Bell, but he gets requests for many different kinds. His collection includes Explosive Embers, Riot, Jalapa, Big Banana, Sweet Pickle, Inferno and Chilly Chili, which he said are "child safe" because children can touch them without getting oil on their hands that can burn.

"They customers want roasting peppers; they want peppers they can put in salads. I've got them from sweet to nuclear," he said.

He sells the plants in 1-gallon containers at shows for $7 per plant or five for $30; starter plants are $3 each or five for $ 10.

Swanson said the interest has grown from people seeking different varieties, "as we have become a world culture. Every civilized culture has some form of pepper in its cuisine."

The plants can be used for the food they produce and as ornamentals. Some, such as the Trifetti, have variegated leaves. Some have dark purple or nearly black leaves.

"The Royal Black could be a centerpiece in anyone's garden," he said.
Pepper plants will freeze, but if they are covered or moved indoors, "They can come back for up to a dozen years," he said.

They require well-drained soil, and Swanson recommends soil containing pine bark, not peat. Swanson fertilizers with Miracle-Gro and adds bone meal after transfers into larger containers and then every other month.

If needed, he controls insects with liquid Sevin and fights fungus with liquid copper.

He said he receives phone calls often from restaurant owners asking him to supply peppers for their recipes but has to decline.

"I don't provide the produce; I don't make hot sauce. I don't have time to do all that," Swanson said.

The next step he plans for his business is to offer a Web site with mail-order pepper starter kits with seeds, soil and containers.

While Swanson doesn't offer hot sauces, other show vendors will, said Kim Hutton, the USF Botanical Gardens' special events coordinator.

Those exhibitors will have samples of salsa, hot sauce and barbecue sauces, as well as bottles of those condiments for sale, Hutton said. Sunday, the Pepper Beauty Contest is planned. Visitors who bring a decorated pepper for the contest will get free admission.

"Peppers fill the whole tropical plant event out," Hutton said. "And each year for the contest, people are more and more elaborate with their decorating and dressing up of the peppers."

Sunday also will feature workshops every half-hour, with topics including begonias, citrus trees, fruit trees and gingers. Members of the Rare Fruit Council will answer questions both days.

Hutton said the organizers expect about 2,000 visitors, a smaller crowd than some of the gardens' other events.

"It's a focused event, but people really love the tropicals in their backyard. This is why we live here," Hutton said.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Tropical Plant Fair

WHEN: From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: University of South Florida Botanicals, 12210 USF Pine Drive

HOW MUCH: $4 for ages 12 and older, free for ages 11 and younger

INFORMATION: Call (813) 974-2329 or visit www.cas.usf.edu/garden.

Correspondent Lenora Lake can be reached at (813) 865-4851 or llake@tampatrib.com.

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