Chilli - Aji limon/Lemon drop (Capsicum baccatum)
The fruits from baccatum chillies are known for their pungent fruity flavours and aji limon is perhaps the most pungent and fruity of them all. It really does have a lemony flavour. If you like the fruitiness of C. chinense peppers such as Scotch bonnet and Habanero but find the heat a little too much, then try aji peppers. They have similar complex flavours but much less heat.
Aji limon is one of the hotter aji peppers but it is a sharp heat that hits fast and fades fast and is rarely overpowering. They are particularly delicious eaten raw in salads and salsas.
Like pubescens, baccatum varieties are relatively cold tolerant compared to other chillies. They will grow well outdoors in summer in many parts of the UK, but they are quite late producers, so are best grown in a greenhouse for a good harvest of ripe fruit. Although slow to get going in spring, by autumn your aji limon plants will be taking over the greenhouse with each plant producing up to a kilo of chillies.
Fruits ripen late – in October and early November for us – and although the green chillies are tasty enough it’s well worth the wait for the ripe ones. Use them fresh as much as you can and dry some for later use (cut them on half for drying as they are fairly juicy peppers). We also ferment some to make Tabasco-style hot sauce and we use some for a delicious chilli jam.
We usually recommend a minimum 7 litre pot size for chillies and aji limon will grow fine and fruit well in such small pots, but they will grow large and produce much heavier crops given space. We use 25 litre pots and get 700-900g of chillies per plant.