I love shishito peppers. I found a seedling plant at a garden store in Waimea and tried to grow it in my yard. It already had some baby shishito peppers on it. Unfortunately, the location where I planted the shishito pepper didn’t have very rich soil and the plant withered and died.

I saved the shishito peppers that were growing on the plant and put it in some pots and got it to germinate. The seedlings looked so healthy and I got so many of them. I shared these seedlings with so many of my friends. When the seedlings looked strong, I planted them in the ground and they looked so healthy. I started seeing flowers and was excited to be able to eat some shishito peppers at home soon.

When the peppers started growing, they sure didn’t look like shishito peppers to me! I looked them up and they looked like Medusa peppers. I have never eaten a Medusa pepper and was afraid to try it. I picked a few and shared them with a chef friend of mine.

He tried it and said it tasted awful–kind of grassy. It must be some kind of ornamental pepper plant rather than for eating. I wonder if the plant I got the shishitos from was actually a hybrid. So sad. I pulled those ornamental plants out since I have no use for them.

Out of all the seedlings that grew, at least one did turn out to be a shishito. I will try and grow more shishito so that I will one day have enough to cook for dinner. I also hope my friends who didn’t kill their plants got some shishito plants and not the other ornamental one.