Jalapeno Tiger

striped beauty

Jalapeño Tiger is a particularly attractive variation of the familiar Jalapeño, with beautifully variegated foliage and striped, multicoloured pods. A Capsicum annuum, it produces smaller, slightly more slender fruits than a conventional Jalapeño, with shades of green, purple, pink and orange appearing as they develop and ripen.

The leaves are equally striking, with irregular markings in green, cream and purple. It's a chilli that would be worth growing for its appearance alone, although there's rather more to it than that.

I grew two plants this season, one in the greenhouse and the other outside on the patio. Both performed extremely well, although I should point out that I'm on the South Coast and we've had an exceptionally good summer.

What particularly impressed me was the growing habit. Ordinary Jalapeño plants can become rather straggly and scruffy, and they're sometimes more difficult to grow well than their reputation suggests. Tiger Jalapeño, by contrast, formed a very tidy, bushy plant with attractive foliage and plenty of fruit. It looked good throughout the growing season, not just when the pods were ripening.

The chillies themselves are smaller than standard Jalapeños and don't have quite the same thick, glossy, waxy appearance. They're produced in considerable numbers, however, and the changing colours make them particularly attractive against the variegated leaves.

The plants also seem well suited to container growing, developing a compact, manageable shape without the sprawling growth I've sometimes experienced with other Jalapeño varieties.

Ornamental chillies can be disappointing when it comes to flavour and heat, but Tiger Jalapeño is a pleasant exception. I actually prefer the flavour to that of a standard Jalapeño. It has the familiar fresh pepper character but with a noticeably fruitier taste and a good level of heat.

The smaller pods are useful for chopping into salsas, adding to salads or pickling, although they're less suited to stuffing than the larger, thick-walled Jalapeños. For me, this is an improvement on the ordinary Jalapeño in several respects, particularly its appearance, growing habit and flavour.