I used to be a picky eater. I used to hate peppers. I used to carefully extract peppers, mushrooms and onions from dishes and throw them in the garbage. I feel ashamed to admit this.

I don’t know exactly when I started eating the things I used to hate. I don’t know exactly when I started loving the things I used to hate eating. But it happened. I know it definitely happened some time in my early adult life. I don’t know how it happened – did I all of a sudden just shove these things into my mouth and declare them amazing? Or did it happen gradually over time? I have no idea. I have goldfish brain.

I know that hot peppers were a more recent addition to my life and I think it was inspired a lot by my love of East Indian and Mexican food, as well as my somewhat recent introduction to Sriracha and other hot sauces (I don’t mean recent as in yesterday, but like the last 5 or so years). Hot peppers intrigue me and I want to grow and eat them all.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a bit of a weakling when it comes to heat. I can handle a bit, but nothing extreme. I like to burn my face off just a little bit, mainly in the privacy of my own home. The filius blue is pretty mild when it comes to hot peppers. It has a little bit of heat, but not much. Dare I say, not enough heat for me. I had some pretty high expectations for it as it is rated the same heat level on the scoville scale (30,000 – 50,000) as the Chinese 5 Color that I wrote about last time. For me, this had about half of that amount of heat. Eating them whole raw (seeds and all) and in multiples was no problem.

I think the best part of the filius blue is the plant itself. It is extremely compact, growing about 6 inches tall and about 8 inches wide in a terra cotta pot. The leaves are a lovely green with a purple tinge on the edges and purple veining. The flowers are white and purple. And the peppers themselves are very small, medium/dark purple and ripening to a bright red. Unlike the Chinese 5 Color, these peppers start out purple, turn a little orange and then directly ripen to red. And the peppers are abundant. I threw them into tacos (it should be mentioned that they lost any traces of heat after being cooked) and into fresh salsa.

I grew two of these plants this year but next year I will limit it to one plant – greenhouse space is valuable real estate! I liked the mild heat of the fresh peppers, but I wasn’t entirely blown away. If you’re looking for a really compact mild hot pepper that easily grows in a pot and looks beautiful, this is the one for you. If you want something really unpleasant and face burn-y, stayed tuned for next year’s harvest.

 Filius Blue Pepper seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.