Every September, the EHS yard in Avondale, just west of Kennett Square, hosts the most competitive growing contest in Chester County. Nobody outside the company has ever heard of it. Inside the company, it’s the biggest day of the year.
Welcome to the 5th Annual Pepper Plant Prize.
The rules are simple. Anyone on the EHS team who wants in grows a jalapeño plant, Capsicum annuum, through the season. This year 24 people signed up. On a late September afternoon they carried the results back to the yard, lined the pots up under the umbrellas and waited for judgment. A handful of plants didn’t survive the summer. That’s gardening. The rest made it to the show, some loaded with glossy green fruit, a few already turned a deep ripe red.
This is a company full of plant professionals, so the judging is taken seriously. This year’s panel, PJ Walraven, Scott Hershbell, Ann Waters and Tom Arthur, scored every plant on health, appearance and yield, the same things the EHS team looks at on a client’s property every day. Leaf color, branching, vigor, how many peppers the plant actually carried. No shortcuts and no favorites.
Then comes the part everyone is really there for.
John takes a bite from every single contestant’s pepper. Raw. One after another. Jalapeños run anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000 Scoville heat units, and a home-grown plant stressed by a hot Pennsylvania summer tends to land toward the top of that range. John knows exactly what he’s signing up for. He does it anyway, every year, gloves on, a cup of Don Julio Blanco and soda in hand, while the entire crew gathers around to watch. Some of those peppers were polite. Some were not. His face told us which was which.
It’s not the most comfortable way to spend an afternoon, and nobody asks him to do it. John does it because he loves the people who work here, and the people who work here love watching him prove it one pepper at a time.
When the scorecards were tallied and the Don Julio was running low, three growers took home cash, prizes and, far more importantly, a full year of bragging rights.
1st Place: Raymundo
2nd Place: Abgail
3rd Place: Erwin
Congratulations to all three, and to every grower who brought a plant back to the yard. Five years in, the Pepper Plant Prize is still the day that reminds us what kind of team we are. The same people who care for the finest gardens in the Brandywine Valley will go to war over a single potted jalapeño, and they’ll grow it beautifully.
See you next September.
Somebody restock the Don Julio.
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