There are hundreds of different kinds of peppers in the world today. Bell peppers and hot peppers top the list of varieties most sought after by home cooks and chefs, but what if you could create a pepper plant that produced a new, hybridized type of pepper? You could make something that would be tasty, useful and desirable in cooking. You would have to learn a little about gardening, if you do not know much already, but the work and the end results might prove quite valuable. Here are a few pointers on how to create new pepper plants and pepper tastes right in your own backyard.

Decide What Pepper Plant Seeds to Cross

What do you want to attempt to grow? Do you want a sweet bell pepper with a little hot pepper kick? Maybe you want to cross Carolina Reaper peppers with Trinidad Moruga Scorpion peppers in an attempt to produce an all-new, virtually lethal hot pepper that thrill-seekers and hot pepper enthusiasts will clamor for? There are just so many options with peppers and pepper plant seeds that you will need to narrow down your choices by what you intend to create with your amateur horticultural experiments. You could also plant a couple of different trays of mixed seeds to see what works and what does not.

Use the Right Planting Soil for the Seeds You Intend to Cross

Using the right planting soil is vital to any horticultural hybridization. Most pepper plants require a soil PH level between 5.5 and 7, so you will want to cross your seeds with other pepper plant seeds that have a very close soil PH requirement (e.g., 5.5 and 6, 6.5 and 7). You will also have to monitor the PH of the soil in your seed trays often, as the pepper plants begin to take root and use up the nutrients in the soil. (The same holds true if you keep your seeds separate but then splice the young plants together in a new soil and seedling tray.)

Taste-Test the Hybrid Peppers in Stages Before Asking Others to Try Them

Finally, as your hybrid plants grow and begin to produce peppers, taste-test these peppers at different stages of growth. Young hybrid peppers of any kind might be a little bitter at first (or have a little zing if they are hot pepper varieties), but that just gives you a starting point for seeing how much the flavor improves as the peppers grow. If the flavor does not improve, or rather tastes downright terrible the more the peppers grow, then you know that particular mix of seeds was a bust. If they taste better later, or if they are unbelievably hot, you might have hit the jackpot and you should consider testing your new hybrid pepper out on friends or a chef or two.