The San Diego Padres' Pepper Garden Grows Ingredients for Ballpark Dishes

While it's a feat in and of itself to have a pepper garden that grows some of the hottest peppers in the world, what truly makes this plot unique is its location. This organic pepper garden is not just situated in the San Diego Padres' home turf, it has a prime spot in the bullpen of the Petco Park. Last season, Luke Yoder, Petco Park’s director of field operations experimented with 18 pepper varieties from 15 countries that are now used in ballpark dishes.

While peppers are best suited for growing in warm summer weather, at other times of the year, Yoder has experimented with everything from avocados to blueberries, carrots and pomegranates. However unconventional, this inventive use of space yields plenty of crowd-pleasing additions to salsas, burgers, tacos and other stadium food snacks year-round.