Big Jim Pepper Seeds

Grow your own Big Jim Chile! Sandia Seed offers the best selection of New Mexico chile varieties, including the deliciously huge Big Jim Legacy. Big Jim Pepper Seeds are easy to start, and grow into nice sized pepper plants with huge chile pods for roasting and enjoying. 




Big Jim Legacy is an all-around winner when it comes to green chile. It has incredible New Mexican chile flavor, thick flesh, and mild to medium heat. A favorite for chile rellenos. The  8-10“ pods are very large, making the pods easy to peel after roasting, and have thick flesh with the perfect amount of heat and flavor. The Legacy Big Jim Chile has mild-to-medium heat with 2,000 - 4,000 Scovilles.




NuMex Big Jim Chile:
If you like Big Jims, check out one of the older releases from NMSU from 1975: The NuMex Big Jim.  This is still one of the best green chiles available and is a favorite of home gardeners and chefs for making chile rellenos, a stuffed chile pod. The light to medium green fruit grows to almost 8” long and 2” wide and moderately flattened. The round-shouldered fruit tapers to a hook at the apex. Plant height is 16”-26” tall and their heat is mild to medium, with 2,500 - 3,000 Scovilles.

Our Doublecross Hatch Green Chile is very hot with 9,000 Scovilles, making it a more spicy version of this giant pepper. Still packed with flavor, this is a spice-lovers chile! The spicy chile pods get to be 9" long, living up to their Big Jim heritage.

Typically Big Jim Pepper Plants are fairly large for peppers, getting to be about 26-36" tall. They are easy to start from seed, and even though they are fast growing (starting to harvest usually around 75 days from planting), it's still good to start them early if you're in a short growing climate so you get lots of pods before the first frost. In early spring, start seeds indoors 8 weeks prior to warm nightly temperatures. Place the seeds in sterile media and cover 1/4” deep. Provide 85°F bottom heat, bright light and keep moist at all times. Seeds will germinate in 7 - 21 days. Transplant seedlings into pots and grow until there are 6 true leaves on the plant. Plant them directly into rich soil, 30” apart or into large 5-gallon containers. Harvest chiles when they are green. If left on the plant a couple more weeks, the chiles will turn red at full maturity, and then you can use them for making red chile sauces or flakes!