Sowing sweet peppers

[rary]

I never have good results growing sweet peppers, I have tried growing them several times, from seed and also buying as young plants, with no success I have had blackish green peppers but never any yellow/orange or red peppers, I have had success with chilly peppers but would much prefer the sweet peppers, so do I need to sow them a bit earlier and if so when would you recommend that I sow the seeds or would you recomend that I keep them warmer?

[Small pumpkin]

I usually sow my sweet peppers end of Feb or early March. Depends when I've finished germinating my chillies. They all get sow in a heated propagator.

[Jungle Jane]

They take such a long time to ripen,some of mine stayed green this year but I don't have a greenhouse,they're all out in the cold. Try to find a quick maturing variety if there is any? The mini bell pepper variety are quicker than others to ripen they're nice but small but then you get more of them. Mavras sweet pepper is chunky & tasty the best Ive grown so far. I start them Feb/March too

[bramble]

Rary, I have grown Corne de Torro. (sp) for the last 2 years.
They have grown to a good size and all turned orange.
Not a huge crop but a nice sweet tasting pepper with good thick walls.
I ususlly sow the seed on Feb 1st in a heated propagator.
Hope this helps.

[Penellype]

I never had much success with large bell peppers but I now grow snackbite peppers which are small and pointed but taste great. I sow them in mid February and grow them under lights until they get too big then put them on the windowsill or into my friend's greenhouse. This year I started eating ripe fruit in mid June and there are still some ripe ones both in the greenhouse and on the windowsills. In 2 litre pots the plants are small enough to stay on the windowsill and some survive the winter if cut back after the leaves drop.

[Zelenina]

I did ok with growing sweet peppers this year, but getting them to ripen was more of a problem. Slovak and Czech people like to eat them in the semi-ripe stage, especially the pale green or almost white ones. So local varieties have been mostly selected to stay in that stage for a long time. It's described on the seed packets as technical ripeness, whereas the fully mature colour is called botanical ripeness.

But I don't prefer them that way and I've been looking for early ripening varieties. And this year I think I've found some, although others that were described as early ripening didn't ripen early for me.

So here are four I recommend.

Napia - a nice sweet longish pointy pepper from Real Seeds that ripens from green to red. They didn't all ripen at once but the first ones were the very earliest I had. I grew these in the ground.

Antohi Romanian - Cone-shaped peppers that started off very pale yellow, almost white, but ripened early to orangey red. They produced some peppers even though they were in pots that were much too small for them. Next year I'll treat them better. Stocked by Mr F and DT Brown and maybe others.

Hamik - a small tasty snack pepper that ripens early to orange. It's a Czech variety but I've seen it in some UK catalogues. It also did ok in quite small pots.

Nokturn - I love growing this one. It looks very dramatic with fat pointy black peppers, but then they ripen to a sweet red with purple tinges, and the first ones were very early. I grew them in the ground. It's a Polish variety and I got seeds in a swap from somewhere. I don't know if you can buy them anywhere, which is why I put it last.

[jackarmy]

you really need to treat them like their hotter cousins, they do so much better in a greenhouse , in fact id say there are chillis that do better outside than SPs by a mile.

[Kirk]

I like yourself Rary I have had little success. They seem to germinate well and start out well then they sort of stop at about 8 inches high and never "bulk up" either.

When I have given up and pulled them out I have found the roots are in effect under developed. Quite a small bunch of root system and much less then I would expect. One or two peppers had a root system about an inch maybe one and a half inches from edge to edge.

Presently I have 4 sweet peppers from last year in pots on a window sill and they appear fairly happy. Present idea is to sow say 4 additional next year and replant these and see what occurs.

Did notice that last year not a flower seemed to get pollinated, so not even the start of a pepper. Equally cannot reacall seeing a flower on them. The term "underdeveloped" comes heavily to mind.

I have taken to sowing inside early, anything I leave until the recommended time just seems to fail to put on size as a plant an d so fails overall. Probably going to select 4 sweet pepper seeds and start them literally just after Christmas/New Year.

I do wonder if I need an early pepper, so that it gets going then has more of our "summer" to develop the fruits. Looked for such last year and sort of failed miserably.

[lolie]

I like yourself Rary I have had little success. They seem to germinate well and start out well then they sort of stop at about 8 inches high and never "bulk up" either.

When I have given up and pulled them out I have found the roots are in effect under developed. Quite a small bunch of root system and much less then I would expect. One or two peppers had a root system about an inch maybe one and a half inches from edge to edge.

Presently I have 4 sweet peppers from last year in pots on a window sill and they appear fairly happy. Present idea is to sow say 4 additional next year and replant these and see what occurs.

Did notice that last year not a flower seemed to get pollinated, so not even the start of a pepper. Equally cannot reacall seeing a flower on them. The term "underdeveloped" comes heavily to mind.

I have taken to sowing inside early, anything I leave until the recommended time just seems to fail to put on size as a plant an d so fails overall. Probably going to select 4 sweet pepper seeds and start them literally just after Christmas/New Year.

I do wonder if I need an early pepper, so that it gets going then has more of our "summer" to develop the fruits. Looked for such last year and sort of failed miserably.

I never plant out peppers until the roots are coming out the bottom of the pot. Like tomatoes, they seem to do best if you force them to use the space they have before giving them unlimited space to grow into.

Capsicums are generally self-pollinating and only need a breeze or a gentle shake. Sometimes they don't release pollen (especially if it's extremely humid in the hours after the flower opens), but it would be unusual for that to happen to every flower on every plant.

They do have a long growing season. Even in ideal weather you're looking at 6-8 weeks from flowering to harvest (after you've already waited a couple of months for them to flower) - even longer if you want them red.

Banana capsicum are faster growing and will go red if you leave them to ripen on the plant. They seem to be less fussy than bell capsicum.

I'd be inclined to grow them in a container so you can coddle them over winter if you get a good plant. They're actually a perennial, so it's worth taking the trouble to overwinter any plants which give you a good crop so you don't have to take your chances with new plants every year. Or you could take some cuttings and overwinter the resulting plants.

[Thelma Sanders]

Kirk - When I have given up and pulled them out I have found the roots are in effect under developed. Quite a small bunch of root system and much less then I would expect. One or two peppers had a root system about an inch maybe one and a half inches from edge to edge

I had this happen with most things I sowed one year and put it down to poor multi purpose compost!
I changed the make of compost I bought and now also add some soil to the mix for potting up, and was back to normal success.

Once they are away they do seem to prefer a bigger pot than tomatoes if they are to do well IMO

[lolie]

Once they are away they do seem to prefer a bigger pot than tomatoes if they are to do well IMO

They definitely take a fair bit of space in good conditions.

[rary]

Thank for the replies Folks, I will try and find some small (they are for two people and the bigger bell peppers get wasted and I am referring to bought ones) early sweet peppers as we dont like the hot ones, I will study the replies and see what I will go for, again thanks

[Penellype]

These are the ones I grow https://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/pe...n-pid6352.html

I usually sow 2 of each colour and plant one of each in a 2 litre pot on the windowsill and one in a chiligrow planter in my friend's greenhouse. In the house they usually produce 6-8 fruit each, then more flowers and another 2-4 fruit. This year the red one on the windowsill has just produced a 3rd lot of flowers, the first of which opened yesterday, but I have no idea if they will set fruit.



The ones in the greenhouse usually produce only 1 lot of fruit (which I am still picking) presumably because it is colder in there.

[Zelenina]

I haven't done any scientific trials on this yet, but I get the impression that peppers and chillies grow better in round pots, and not too deep relative to the width. Their root systems appear to spread out naturally in a circular pattern and are fairly shallow, so a bit more width rather than depth when I repot seems to suit them.

Tomatoes on the other hand don't care and their roots will fill any shape of container.

I find peppers generally are slower growing and less vigorous than tomatoes, but they respond well to steady heat in the early stages, though I find they can tolerate cold better towards the end of the season. I'm not sure if sowing them very early is going to help unless you can provide them with extra heat and light.

[Scarlet]

I have grown several peppers over the years and I find the typical supermarket "blocky type " peppers don't do that well, especially if you are trying to grow them outside.
I grew "Deco de Mocha - Sweet Aji" Its a small pepper without the heat. It's pretty prolific and tastes great. Lovely in salads etc - kids loved them. Start off in Feb and as soon as you can get it into the GH pot up into the biggest pot you have (regardless of how big the plant is - don't bother pitting on in stages as you would with tomatoes) and add plenty of slow release fertiliser. They need lots of feed to crop well. I feed them much more than my tomatoes.

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/sweetpeppers.html