Pepper Joe's — Local services in Urbana

(Note - I live in Wisconsin) Great customer service, but some problems in the quality of their plants. My first order (5 packs of seeds) was missing the Carolina Reaper pepper seeds. I contacted Customer Service and they sent seeds to correct the oversight (nice, polite, and prompt). Overall, the seeds produced about 30% average germination, which is pretty good for an amateur setup like mine. Peppers are notoriously hard to germinate, which was why I ordered some live plants as they became available. On my first plant order arrived in June and the plants were slightly damaged in the box (stems pinched) with several of the leaves had fallen off the plants, and I had to nurse all 4 of the plants back to health. However, all 4 came back to health and all plants have pepper pods on them (albeit the pods are green and scarce -- only 5 or 6 per plant) My order of Reaper Jerky was next, and that product was as expected...tasty and spicy!! Then, on the last three orders (July), the plants arrived damaged, with the stems constricted (see first photo). We only managed to nurse about half of them back to health, and of the 3 (out of 6) plants that survived, only 1 has peppers on it. I would have contacted Customer Service, but the plants struggled on for 3 weeks before finally dying. Last week, the Carolina Reaper pepper pods arrived and looked ok on the outside (small dark spots, hardly noticeable), but when I cut them open they had rotten innards on 4 out of 12 of the pods (see second photo). EDITED: I originally posted that I would no longer be ordering from them, based on the frequent problems I had with my orders. However, like I said they have GREAT customer service; they read the review and immediately sent out replacement pepper pods, as well as a selection of products to make up for the problems I had with my previous orders. I'm going to try the food products they sent me and re-consider ordering from them in the future. I will also consider ordering seeds, as I think I got satisfactory results from their seeds this year. However, I will probably not order the plants unless they offer an Express shipping option...3-4 days in transit is too hard on the plants and I'm not experienced enough to "save" them once they arrive.

SUGGESTION TO PEPPER JOE'S: Please consider an express shipping option for the plants. If someone is willing to pay $10 for a plant, they're probably willing to spend a few extra bucks to ensure they arrive quickly...

Be careful when you order the world's hottest pepper collection. They don't date their seed packets (You could be buying very dated and/or old seeds)!! I planted all 11 seed groups in a small greenhouse with a heater mat and LED grow lights directly overhead. NOT ONE seed germinated in two weeks time. I called and expressed my concern. I was told that it takes 6 to 8 WEEKS to germinate. I have my own Bhut Jolokia and Carolina Reaper seeds from last year and they have both germinated in less than 7 days. I expressed that I did not see the long germination times listed while purchasing. She told me that it is listed in the learn section and on the bottom of the same page they advertise these. It is not on the page they sell these, and under every seeds specific info to which many have a germination time of 7 to 21 days. The customer ervice rep then went on to tell me that I was bashing her and bashing her company which I never did. When I asked for her name, she told me that I didn't need to know that and hung up the phone.

So six out of the eleven seed types germinated by the end of the fourth week. Unfortunately, the other four has not entering into the 6th week. The six that did germinate were the Butch T, Trinidad Scorpion, Carolina Reaper, Apocalypse Scorpion, Yellow Ghost, and the Komodo Dragon. I wish that they would print instructions for each plant type on the back of the envelope/package and date them. I also wish the customer service representative would have been nicer. She could have said to me that she would like to follow up with me in a few weeks and see how things were going instead of taking a defensive and adversarial position with me. At almost 54 cents per seed, anyone would be concerned about the results since a negative one moves growing that strain to the next year.

Does Joe...

This company is amazing!!! They deserve 10 out of 5 stars for the hard work they have put in since the beginning. I've been with them since September 5th 2019 and their seeds have not failed me but rather impressed me with the germination rates. I have seen their changes throughout the years from the smallest details in packaging (which they do very well at making sure they seeds are safe) to their logo changes. The customer service is top notch as I read the reviews of certain Pepper seeds, anyone who had issues they immediately tried to contact to help fix or see what the issue was. These pictures I posted are ones of seeds I bought in 2020 (minus the California pepper seeds from King Soopers). This is my Christmas tree of Pain (nicknamed Papa) which is five different pepper plants in one pepper plant. The California pepper plant served as a parent plant since I've had it growing for 2 years then I grafted about 2-4 month seedling pepper plants (from pepper joes) onto the California pepper plant. Thus creating a Christmas tree of pain. The plant survived for a while ( 1 year) but sadly Colorado's notorious bipolar weather killed it. I plan on doing another Christmas tree of pain as it has already gotten 2-3 victims who were foolish enough to underestimate its spice. So thank you Pepper Joe's for the amazing seeds to create such a beautiful and painful...