Carter Ranch
Jeff Carter
jeffcarter6@hotmail.com

I got interested in growing exotic peppers while on my honeymoon in Spain.  My lovely new wife and I ordered our first plat of Pimentos de Pedro and I was hooked.  On subsequent trips to Spain, we brought back seeds to grow in our back yard garden and started to share them with our friends.

I was a headhunter for computer folks at the time and the dot com collapse, coupled with a growing disdain for the profession in general led me to the conclusion: why not grow peppers that you won’t find at the corner supermarket?

To this end, I purchased a vacant greenhouse that had once belonged to Wolfe Nursery in Dallas.  We took it apart and moved it to Celina, Texas, where our family has been ranching since the early fifties.

There is a federal lake on the property which provides water for the greenhouse.  It took a while to get everything put back together.  The first crop consisted of two Spanish varieties.  Since then, our selection has diversified to include peppers from Spain, Italy, Hungary, Japan, India, Slovenia, Germany, Portugal and Turkey.

Some varieties grown include:

Spain

Pimento de Padron
Piquillo Peppers
Red Guindilla Peppers
Yellow Guindilla Peppers
Mooron Peppers
Vizcaino Peppers

Italy

Topepo Peppers
Corno di Toro Rosso
Corno di Toro Giallo
Beso di Satana
Asti du Quattro Giallo
Sigaretta di Bergano

Hungary

Black Sweet Hungarian
Sweet Hungarian
Red Hot Hungarian
Yellow Hot Hungarian

Japan:

Shishito Peppers
Fushimi Peppers

India

Elephants Trunk Peppers

Slovenia

Babura Peppers
Kurtorska Drop Pepper
Sweet Ferdi
Bulgarian Carrot Pepper

Germany

Mini Chocolate Peppers

Portugal

Portuguese Goat Heart Peppers

Turkey

Ege Aci Sivri Peppers
Yalova Yaglich Peppers
Kil Sirzi Tabli

All of my peppers are grown using all natural ingredients.  I am not certified organic nor do I intend to be in the future.  That being said, I don’t send anything downstream that I wouldn’t want coming my way.

Our peppers are fertilized using seaweed, molasses, blood meal and Epsom salts. To kill unwanted insects, neem oil, insecticidal soap and beneficial insects such as ladybugs and lacewings are utilized. Rodent control is handled by our killer greenhouse cat, Picasso.