Scotch Bonnet Pepper Seeds

Fiery heat, deep-rooted flavor

Scotch Bonnet peppers bring serious heat and hold a central place in West African and Caribbean kitchens, where they're essential to hot sauces, jerk chicken, and countless other beloved dishes. The name comes from the pepper's resemblance to a tam o' shanter — the traditional Scottish cap.

A Family Legacy

This particular strain was cultivated and offered in our 2021 and 2022 catalogs by Rasheed Hislop and Rosalba Lopez Ramirez of Black Zocalo, based in California. For Rasheed, whose father hails from Trinidad, this pepper carries deep family significance. It was his grandmother, Sylvia Foncette-Hislop — known affectionately as "Gran" — who passed down the art of pepper sauce-making, along with countless other recipes, throughout his life in Cascade, Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Interestingly, Rasheed's surname "Hislop" reflects a different thread of history: his great-great-grandfather was a Scotsman who journeyed to the Caribbean in the 1800s alongside his three brothers, part of the colonial pursuit of wealth. This pepper's story is a reminder of how layered and often complicated Afro-Caribbean heritage truly is — histories that resist easy simplification.

Quick Facts

• Heat level: 100,000–350,000 Scoville Heat Units
• Maturity: 90–110 days
• Seeds per pack: 12–15
• Germination: 96% (as of 12/16/2025)

Growing Tips

Begin seeds indoors 8–10 weeks before your last expected frost, and wait until frost danger has fully passed before moving plants outside. Keep young seedlings consistently moist, but avoid saturating the soil. Give transplants a thorough initial watering, and maintain steady irrigation along with full sun exposure for the best yields. These plants tend to grow tall and abundant, so staking is often necessary to support their weight.

Saving Your Own Seed

Peppers are typically self-pollinating, but we still separate different varieties within the same species by at least 50 feet as a precaution against unintended insect cross-pollination. Keep in mind that peppers span several distinct species, so it's worth double-checking scientific names when saving seed. You'll know Scotch Bonnet seeds are ready to harvest once the fruits reach their mature color — a vivid, fiery orange. Slice the pepper open, scrape out the seeds, and spread them on a labeled screen or paper in a well-ventilated, shaded space to dry for one to two weeks. Gloves are strongly recommended for handling! Note that drying whole peppers before extracting seeds can slightly reduce germination rates, though it remains a perfectly viable method for home seed savers, provided the fruit doesn't spoil first.