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Beaver Dam Pepper
Capsicum annuum
This mild to medium hot pepper is crunchy, rich, and fruity with a sweet intro and a surprise spicy finish. 5-8" goat horn-shaped fruits ripen from bright lime-green to red, and are good for slicing fresh onto a sandwich, stuffing, or pickling. Be prepared for a plentiful harvest! Beaver Dam’s Scoville Heat Unit ranking is a scant 500-1,000, giving it a flavor more akin to a slightly spicy ripe bell pepper than even a mild Poblano.
These seeds came to the US originally with the family of Joe Hussli, Hungarian Immigrants, who arrived in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin in 1912. Though generally eaten fried, stewed, pickled or roasted in the US, pimento type peppers are often dried and powdered in Hungary for zesty paprika. The Beaver Dam Pepper Festival turns up the heat in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin on the second Saturday of September! The Beaver Dam Pepper has been designated by Slow Food as an outstandingly tasty, culturally important, and endangered heirloom and is listed in their Ark of Taste as a way to invite everyone to take action to help protect it.
Days to maturity: 70-80
Seeds per pack: 25
Germination rate: 96% on 01/18/2023
Planting / harvesting notes
Start seeds indoors 8-10 weeks before the last frost and transplant into garden well after the danger of frost. Keep seedlings moist but do not overwater. Transplants should be initially watered in well, and plants will be most productive with regular irrigation and full sun. With a leafy growth habit and a heavy yield, Beaver Dam can benefit from staking.
Seed keeping notes
Peppers are generally self-pollinating, though we isolate different varieties of the same species by at least 50 feet, in hopes that flying insects will not cross pollinate them unexpectedly. There are several important species of peppers, so check your scientific names! Pepper seeds are ripe when the fruits have turned their final fiery color - in this case, red. Cut the fruit (consider wearing gloves), scrape out seeds, and lay them out to dry on a labeled screen or paper product in a ventilated place away from direct sunlight for a week or two. Drying the peppers before seed extraction can slightly lower your germination rates, but works fine for home seed saving as long as the peppers do not rot.
