Chile Peppers!

The classic staple of New Mexican cuisine, tastes great in anything from tacos to cheeseburgers, and if you can't decide on red or green you know the answer is always "Christmas Style" to satisfy that craving!  

Hatch is a small town along the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, and the varieties of chiles from this region have an international reputation as the best in the world!  

While many know the "Anaheim" chile which was originally developed from New Mexican chiles to grow in California, we find the "Joe E. Parker", "Sandia", and "Big Jim" varieties to be our favourites, and know you'll enjoy them too.

People in New Mexico have recently been discussing making roasted chile the official state aroma!  I can personally say that the first time I got that amazing smell after years of being out of New Mexico, the memories kicked in quickly.  Nothing beats the smell and taste of fresh roasted New Mexico Hatch Chile!

A multitude of landrace chile varieties from the Northern part of New Mexico have been cultivated by the Native peoples of the area for centuries. 
These chiles have been selectively bred over the generations to be successful in the shorter, cooler growing season and higher elevations of Northern New Mexico.  

We are growing dozens of these varieties together in both an effort to help maintain the unique genetics of these endangered chile types, while also allowing them to be open pollenated and hybridized. Doing this year to year, and maintaining a selection of seeds each generation with the hopes of developing a distinct Canadian variety hardy and successful to our particular climate.  

Varities such as the Chimayo, Velarde, Jemez Pueblo and more make some of the most beautiful and delicious chile powder you'll want to use as your secret ingredient to every meal!

Las Cruces is a city just south of Hatch, and where NMSU is located, home of the Chile Pepper Institute, which researches and develops varities of peppers to help maintain genetics and successful crops, while also breeding new varities of chiles every year.  

The Las Cruces Cayenne was developed to create a robust, large and thick walled pepper with excellent flavour!  

If you're a fan of Louisiana style hot sauces such as "Frank's" chances are it was actually made with Cayenne peppers from New Mexico!   Having grown up in Las Cruces during my early childhood, I had to grow this variety just because of the name and have been very pleased to it's adaptability to our BC growing region.  This is my own personal favourite to make hot sauce with, causing me to leave other commercial hot sauce brands sitting in the pantry!  

Used fresh, dried, or turned into hot sauce, this is one of the best tasting peppers out there! 

Probably the most common hot pepper flavour in snacks and used as a condiment to spice up meals, the Jalapeño is a classic of the pepper world.  

Last season we grew a few varities such as the NuMex Piñata, NuMex Orange Spice, and NuMex Lemon Spice.  Piñata ripen slowly from a creamy white to orange, then red.  The Orange Spice and Lemon Spice ripen to what their names suggest, with some of the most vibrant orange and yellow colours seen on any pepper and featuring a bright sweet crisp flavour and more heat than any other Jalapeño you'd get from the grocery store! 

One of the plants however grew out an interesting variation not planned for (seen in photo above!) with amazing large Jalapeños that ripened slowly from yellow-orange to red.  These mystery jalapeños made some perfect poppers to enjoy with my green chile cheeseburgers.  

We will be growing out more of the new "Jalapeño XW22" from saved seeds to see how it turns out this season along with the Orange, Lemon, Piñata, Early Jalapeño, Jalapeño M, and a Mexican heritage variety, the Zapotec Jalapeño.

You can rest assured no matter what may happen to supply chains around the world, we will have an abundance of delicious Jalapeños right here in the Lower Mainland for your nacho needs.

While most hot peppers from Mexico and New Mexico are known as "Chile" peppers, in South America and Peru specifically they are known as "Ají" peppers.  Last year we grew three varieties of Ají, the Amarillo, Limo, and Rico.  

Ají Amarillo and Limo specifically are the workhorse pepper of Peruvian cuisine.  We are pleased to be expanding our selection of these varities this year, in addition to other Ají varieties the Ayuyo, Pinapple, Mango, and a new white Peruvian Habanero pepper!

These peppers bring a fresh tropical flavour pallet still very new to North American folks, and we highly recommend giving these a try!