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Szechuan Pepper

bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,697
in Fruit & veg
This has been given as a birthday present. RHS and Gardners World both say it is hardy down to -20 and will do OK in clay soil. However RHS says the "peppers" are inedible.
Have any of you grown this pepper? Is it really that hardy? And are the seeds edible? Many thanks as always here in the SW

Posts

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I've no experience of growing them, but my understanding is that they're grown for the seeds rather than the fruit ... I use the seeds in cooking ... they're hard and round like black pepper and need grinding.  They have a slightly numbing tingling effect on the mouth.  

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,697
    Many thanks @Dovefromabove. The company leaflet says "as you chew the pepper corn you'll first experience a citrusy, sherberty tingle which gives way to a spicy, numbing warmth- which some say is similar to licking a battery (in a good way!)" How bizarre to give that last sentence.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    It is an odd expression, but I have heard it used to describe various flavours before ... not something Ive tried   :/

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • NormandyLizNormandyLiz Posts: 788
    They have at least one at the Jardin du Mesnil near here (north Normandy, near Dieppe). The temperatures can get pretty low, I should have thought our climate is not vastly different to yours. This is a mature specimen that has done well for some  so it's clearly pretty hardy. 

    I'm hoping to join you in the szechuan pepper tree owners' club, but not for a while. I took 3 cuttings from their tree (it was a cuttings workshop). He's never tried propagating Zanthoxylum through cuttings but nothing ventured... He did say it is the most dispiriting tree in the winter, it looks completely dead but one day in spring it decides life is still worth living.

    It's a fabulous spice, best briefly dry fried then ground. 
  • Balgay.HillBalgay.Hill Posts: 1,089
    There are many plants that would be ok with UK winter temperatures.
    It is the wet cold they don't like. Even some cactus can be grown in outside arid beds as long as they are sheltered from the rain.
    Sunny Dundee
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