Hungarian Hot Wax Chilli

The most reliable chilli here for growing outdoors. Most chillies want greenhouse warmth before they will crop, but this one was bred in continental eastern Europe and it will fill a sunny sheltered spot in a British garden without any glass at all. The plants are compact and bushy at around 60cm, rarely need staking, and give 20 to 30 fruits each in a good summer.

The pods are long tapered points of 12 to 15cm, and they ripen from pale yellow-green through orange to deep red, with all three stages on the plant at once through August. The heat runs 5,000 to 10,000 Scoville units, warmer than a bell pepper and gentler than a jalapeno, and the flavour is genuinely fruity. Pick pale yellow for the mildest, orange for medium, red for the fullest heat and sweetness.

That mild-medium level is why it has stayed in catalogues for decades. You can use whole pods rather than slivers and leave the seeds in without thinking about it. The walls are thick enough to stuff and bake, which few chillies of this size manage, and the waxy skin holds its shape in a pickling jar. It is open-pollinated, so seed saved from your best fruits comes true.