Yummy Orange Snacking Pepper

A GREAT sweet pepper I grew for the first time this year. Early in the season I lost a couple of pepper seedlings to moles, and I replaced them with two of these plants from WalMart, grown by Bonnie Plant Farms. They turned out just like the labels said - very sweet, great flavor, super-productive, growing on big sturdy 4' tall plants, and, well, yummy. I had to support those plants with wire tomato cages, or they'd have broken themselves down.

http://bonnieplants.com/products/vegetables/peppers/yummy-snacking-pepper

I've had concerns in the past about buying pepper seedlings from nurseries, so I always start my own from seed. I think, years ago, I picked up PMMV (pepper mild mottle virus) in my garden soil from nursery peppers - but after years of good garden practice and cleaning up plant debris it seems to be gone now. Even though I bought these two plants I seem to have got away with it, they had no PMMV symptoms.

And what a great, great pepper it is - wow! I read somewhere in one of the seed catalogs that the (unfortunate) name comes from this pepper's name in Czech, which is like a little kid saying "yum-yum". That hints that this variety is from the Czech Republic - and if anyone here knows what the original name is in Czech, I'd like to know it.

This pepper isn't a hybrid, so before our first frost I put these two ripe peppers aside and they're drying now for seeds. I'll raise these from seeds from now on along with my other pepper varieties, and for those who don't have any to save, the seeds are available in seed catalogs. You'll LIKE them!

I've seen those and wondered how they would be. I'll give them a try this year.

Ozark--
This sounds like something I would like to try in 2014. Have you run across a commercial seed source?

Never mind--I found them in the Totally Tomatoes catalog. $2.95 for 20 seeds.

This message was edited Jan 10, 2014 12:17 PM

My seeds came from the peppers I bought in the store. Just saved them till planting time.
Those peppers are absolutely the best tasting peppers I have had. Nothing at all like the bell pepper.

The two peppers pictured above in November dried up nicely on my shop workbench, and I'm going to start some of those seeds indoors under lights with my other peppers and tomatoes in March. "Yummy Orange" is so good, I want four or five plants in my garden this year.

I've been enjoying them all winter because I pickled some quart jars of garden peppers last season. I cut these into strips and pickled some in mixed jars along with whole pepperoncini peppers and jalapeno rings. "Yummy" has no heat, but they picked up a little from the brine - and those thick walls make them crunchy, tasty, and real, real good on sandwiches.

Gonna grow me some more of those!

Did you separate them by color? I had to plant some of each color ...lol

"Did you separate them by color? I had to plant some of each color"
-----------------------------

No, I only had orange ones - and I hope they stay orange. I read somewhere that these ripen "red and/or orange", but I don't understand.

Does that mean they're unstable and the peppers on a given plant may ripen either all orange or all red? Or does it mean that some peppers ripen orange and some red on the same plant? My plants were labeled "Yummy Orange Snacking Pepper" by Bonnie Plant Farms, and they grew all orange-when-ripe peppers.

The peppers I bought were in a bag of red, yellow and orange. So I had kept the seeds separated.
I had grown them for a group of friends and only kept 2 of my own. One was red and the other yellow. I'll check with them and see what they say.

They all tasted the same.

You probably have just orange seed.

Tomato Growers has them advertised as Yum-Yum Hybrid Mix. A mix of all three colors.

http://www.tomatogrowers.com/Miniature-Peppers/products/44/

Johnny's seeds has the colors separated. Look under sweet peppers.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8776-lunchbox-orange-og.aspx

I think your fine with your orange seed.

Johnny's sells them as Lunchbox Red , Yellow , and Orange and is claiming credit for developing the variety. I won't open that can of worms, although Sandia Seed has the open-pollinated seed in orange only and they acknowledge that the variety originated in the Czech Republic. I now have 6 seedlings from Sandia that were sown Jan. 4 and have been up since Jan. 11 and are looking really good.

This message was edited Jan 15, 2014 1:35 PM

Since they are hybrids it will be interesting to see what this generation will be like...looking forward to hearing about how they do. : )

Lisa, I don't think it's a hybrid - though T.G.S. says theirs is a hybrid, so maybe the peppers they are offering are.

Others, including Bonnie Plant Farms and Johnny's, just don't say one way or the other - and in my experience suppliers sometimes don't go out of their way to tell customers they can save seeds if a variety is open-pollinated.

In PlantFiles, here, it's listed as an OP variety. Farmerdill was the first reviewer back in 2007, and I don't think he would have missed correcting that if "Yummy" was in fact a hybrid.

Anyway, I don't accept that mixed-color packets of seeds can actually be the same variety. Different color, different pepper, in my opinion.

After reading how good these little peppers are sure hope Bonnies has them in my area. Sometimes they don't offer every thing around here.

Ozark, I agree. They are also listed in Totally Tomatoes, they have orange and mixed to choose from. They do look good.

Ozark,

Could I send you a stamp for a few of your saved 'Yummy' seeds? The two places I've tried to order both have them on back-order. I'd like to start seeds ASAP. If I don't get seeds until March I will be very late getting planted.

David

TT has them as the Yummy series but I've seen some advertised as the Yum Yum Hybrid series. Then there is the Lunchbox peppers from Johnnies...I don't think they are the same but similar...I've seen the same thing with other veggies. We may not be talking about the same pepper.

I got a bag of fresh small orange and red peppers last week at Wally's. I have no idea if they are the same but must say they sure did taste good. Went by my local Ace and made sure the Mgr. put on the list the Yummy's from Bonnies for this years order.

I got my seeds from a bag of peppers I bought at wally's too. All 3 colors. They all taste the same
and look great on a pizza.

Linda, Hi and tasted good stuffed with French onion dip also from wally's

Never thought of using a dip with them. Sounds good..

All of the rave comments regarding this pepper are entirely justified. Grew them this year and they are fantastic. The wife made a salad of apples , shredded carrots, raisins, and these peppers. If I didn't look at my fork before taking a bite, it was hard to know if I was eating pepper or apple. Thanks, Ozark for turning me on to this gem of a pepper!

So true they are the best.

I ended up with two Yum plants from my 2013 saved peppers, above. They're loaded with big green peppers, and one appears to be ripening orange.

Those were replacement plants last year, plugged into a row of Mariachi mild hot peppers. Since I've learned how easily peppers cross-pollinate, I was concerned that these Yummy Orange ones might be crossed. But, a few days ago I harvested a green one and ate it in the garden. It was sweet with no heat at all, so I think they're what I intended to grow.

Next year I think I'll just order seeds and grow the three Yummy pepper colors in a bigger way. They are good.

I've been growing 'Sweet Pickles' peppers for years, but we may have to give these yum-yums a try!

'Sweet Pickles' is an OP variety, not sure if they've been around long enough to be considered "heirloom," but probably. They're sweet enough to eat whole right off the plant -- even the seeds have no bitter flavor. I've pickled them whole, too, like pepperoncini.

So far I've had no production on the Yummy plants. The hot peppers in the next-door Earthbox have been going crazy, so not sure what the problem may be.

I have a few about 1in. long, but tons of blooms. I sure hope they will be fruitful.

I've harvested four ripe Yummy Orange peppers from the two plants I have, and there are quite a few green ones on both plants. They were real sweet, so apparently the seeds didn't get crossed last year. They're bigger than I remember, about 3 1/2" long - maybe I just have the plants in a better spot this season.

Mine are about that size.too. I was expecting a smaller pepper. But I'm not complaining.

Just picked first 5 ripe Orange yummys. These are just about the same size as the ones from last year. Just around 2 in. long. I have 4 plants and they were all from saved seeds. For sure next year will plant more, they are the best sweet peppers ever.

I picked a bunch of peppers this afternoon, and we're freezing and canning them this evening.

These are two 4-gallon buckets, so I got about 3 gallons of each. In the bucket at top are the sweet peppers Carmen, Jimmy Nardello, Ljubov Dlan, and Yummy Orange. I'm glad to hear Yummy Orange is doing well for others - it certainly bred true from saved seeds here.

In the bucket at the bottom are the mild hot peppers TAM Jalapeno and Italian Pepperoncini.

I pick the mild hot peppers when they're ripe or at least ripening for better flavor, and I pickle and can them in pint jars. I like them on sandwiches along with French bread, lunch meat, sharp cheese, olive oil, a little hot vinegar from the pickled pepper jar - yup, like that. :>)..

We de-seed and slice the sweet peppers into strips, and freeze them in Foodmaster vacuum bags. Sweet peppers go in many meals and dishes, and we package and label the Jimmy Nardello peppers separately - best Italian frying peppers ever!

Glad you had such a wonderful harvest, enjoy. Yes my Yummy Orange came true from saved seeds. And very happy about that. They seem to change color over night.

Those pickled peppers of yours sound mouth watering. Hope sometime you could share your recipe.

Pickled peppers... yum! The recipe I use is at the end of this article: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/630/

Gotta get my paws on some Yummy Orange seeds for next year... :-)

Pickled peppers for sure, critter - I eat 'em on sandwiches year-round!

Txtea, this last harvest, pictured, made 5 1/2 quarts of pickles so I needed 5 1/2 pints of brine total, which is the same as 11 cups.

I de-seeded the Pepperoncinis and cut them into strips, left the seeds in the mild Jalapenos and sliced them crossways into rings. In the bottom of each jar I put a little minced garlic and about four Jalapeno rings, to boost the heat of the Pepperoncinis a bit. Then I boiled brine made of:

6 cups filtered water
3 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups white vinegar
12 tablespons Kosher salt

I filled the jars with Pepperoncini strips, mashed down as much as possible. Ladled boiling brine into each jar to 1/2" from the top, attached lids and rings finger-tight, then boiled the jars hard in a hot-water canner for 3 minutes. Set the jars on the counter, tightened the rings, and left them to cool and seal.

Thanks, you have made mouth start to water. Sounds delicious.

Someone gave me some pepper seeds and I though they were hot and they even looked
IIke Halpeneo peppers but when I picked them they are sweet ones. Does anyone ever grow them.