Many home gardeners must shift gears mentally to visualize peppers as a garden flower. But one planting is sufficient to convince most skeptics. Many ornamental pepper varieties have delicious fruit with flavors ranging form mild to very hot. While standard pepper plants are tall, rangy and scantily covered with fruits, the ornamental varieties have thick foliage, heavy fruit loads and are often compact so they fit in as landscape plants. The choice in fruit shapes and colors won't disappoint you.
Some varieties change color from yellow to purple to red, other form purple to red.
The variety Thai Hot bears 1-inch long fruit which turn a brilliant scarlet on shrubby plants which only reach 8 inches in height. This helps to reduce the buildup of disease organisms to which a crop and its related crops are susceptible. In rotating crops, avoid planting any closely related crop in the same area of the garden. In planning this spring's garden, check last year's garden layout. If you planted tomatoes in rows 1 and 2 on the east side of the garden, plant an unrelated crop like carrots in that area.