Cayenne Long Thin Hot Pepper is a slender, fiery heirloom that has earned its place in gardens and kitchens for generations. The 2-foot plants produce vigorous, prolific harvests of long peppers that ripen to brilliant red in just 70 days, delivering intense heat and the bright, complex bite cayenne is famous for. These peppers dry beautifully and have been treasured not only as a culinary staple but also as a traditional medicinal plant across many cultures.
Full Sun
Moderate
?-?
?in H x ?in W
—
Moderate
Hover over chart points for details
Long, thin fruit packed with serious heat ripens to a vivid red that signals peak potency. The plants stay compact at 2 feet yet produce abundantly throughout the season, making them surprisingly productive for their size. Drying transforms these peppers into the classic ground cayenne spice that has flavored cuisines worldwide for centuries.
Cayenne Long Thin peppers excel at drying, transforming into the bright red powder that seasons everything from Creole cooking to Asian stir-fries and Indian curries. Fresh, the peppers bring intense heat to hot sauces, pickles, and pepper pastes. Many gardeners preserve them through drying or fermentation to create homemade spice blends that last through winter, capturing their peak potency at harvest time.
No timeline data available yet for this variety.
Start seeds indoors 8 to 10 weeks before your last spring frost. Keep soil temperature around 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit for consistent germination within 7 to 10 days. Provide bright light once seedlings emerge to prevent legginess.
Transplant hardened-off seedlings outdoors only after soil temperatures have warmed to at least 70 degrees and all frost danger has passed. Space plants 14 to 18 inches apart. Plant at the same depth they were growing in their containers.
Cayenne peppers reach harvest maturity at 70 days from transplanting. Peppers can be picked at any stage, but for maximum heat and flavor, allow them to fully ripen to bright red before harvesting. Once they turn red, use clean scissors or pruning shears to cut the peppers from the plant rather than pulling, which can damage branches. For drying, harvest at full red maturity when the skin has thinned slightly and the pepper begins to wrinkle naturally, signaling peak concentration of heat and flavor compounds.
Enter your ZIP code to see a personalized growing calendar for this plant.
“Cayenne peppers trace their origins to tropical regions of Central and South America, where they were cultivated and used for thousands of years before European contact. This particular heirloom variety carries forward that ancient lineage, having remained a consistent presence in seed catalogs and home gardens for many years. The variety embodies the traditional cayenne form that early botanists and traders encountered and preserved, passing it down through generations of gardeners who recognized its reliability, heat level, and exceptional drying properties.”