Difficulty
From seeds: Fairly easy, requires slightly more work to grow from seed.
From young plants: Really easy, suitable for beginners but a greenhouse is necessary.
Why Grow Peppers?
Growing chillies and sweet peppers has become really popular. Given the right conditions, a few plants will provide you with an abundant crop that’s easy to store and versatile enough to be used in all sorts of recipes.
They’re happy growing in pots or containers and there are plenty of types available to choose from, including dwarf types such as Basket of Fire, which can be grown on a windowsill if you don’t have a greenhouse.
Peppers vary from being very sweet to being incredibly hot, with lots of variants in between:
Sweet Peppers – Different varieties of sweet pepper grow to reach different sizes, look out for those labelled ‘dwarf’ or ‘compact’ plants, which are bushy and grow to around 25cm tall. Non dwarf varieties can grow to between 60 and 100cm tall.
The fruit of sweet peppers vary in shape, size and colour from variety to variety, shapes include conical, square and bonnet-shaped, and colours include green, yellow, orange, purple and white.
Chilli Peppers – Available in dwarf form as well as tall and a range of different flavours and hotnesses, there’s plenty to choose from and all are quite unique.
Chilli peppers are easier to store than sweet peppers. Often, the plants provide too many chillies to eat in a season, which is why it's useful to be able to store them for use at a later date.Some varieties are suitable for drying, such as Cayenne, and others can be preverved in oil, pickled or frozen. If you're going to freeze them, be aware that they go very soggy once they've defrosted so it's best to use them chopped up in recipes.
Our Top Varieties
Sweet peppers from seed: Carnival Mixture, Lany (Red), Ace (Green)
Chilli peppers from seed: Jalapeno, Joe’s Long, Topepo Rosso
Sweet peppers from plants: Yummy, Lany, Diablo
Chilli peppers from plants: Apache, Jalapeno, Habanero
When to Sow
Chillies and peppers from seed: February – April
Chillies and peppers from plants: May
Harvest time
Chillies and peppers grown from seed: July - October
Chillies and peppers grown from plants: July – September
Site and Soil
Chillies and peppers naturally grow in much hotter countries than ours, so need to be grown in greenhouse or polytunnel. They’re perfect for growing in grow bags or in containers with multipurpose or vegetable compost. They’re best positioned in full sun.
How to Grow Chillies and Peppers from Seeds
Sowing
Sow indoors in early spring in seed trays or modules in a warm greenhouse or propagator and lower the temperature gradually after germination.
If sown in seed trays, prick out at about three-leaf stage into 9cm pots. Once the plants are established and the roots have filled the pot they should be potted up individually into 30cm pots or growbags.
How to Grow Chillies and Peppers from Plants
Planting
Your plants will arrive in May, just as they’re at the right stage for planting into large pots or growbags. Plant each young plant individually into 30cm pots and water-in generously.
Further Growing Information for Chillies and Peppers
Growing
To keep your plant growing in a bushy shape and to encourage the growth of more fruit, cut off the growing tip of the stem (just above a branching point) once it reaches about 35cm tall. The growing tips can also be pinched out of the branching stems as well to encourage even more fruit.
If the plants become heavily laden with fruit the branches may require a little bit of support from a small cane or stake. For best results, feed with Bio-Gro Black Gold or Nutri Tomato Plant feed, once every two weeks, once the plants are established. This will encourage the plants to produce as many chillies or peppers as possible.
Keep chilli and pepper plants moist, but try not to over water - they don’t like to sit in water for long periods of time. They enjoy high humidity, which can be achieved by watering the floor of the greenhouse or leaving trays of water next to the plants.
Where the plants are grown under cover, keep them well ventilated. If possible, spray or mist the foliage with water every day.
Harvesting
· Sweet peppers - Start picking green peppers when smooth, glossy and a usable size. Picking early fruits encourages further cropping. Mature fruits, most notably red skinned ones, are sweeter with enhanced flavour. Red, yellow, orange, purple and white peppers can take 3 – 6 weeks to turn from the immature green stage to their mature colour, but need full, hot sun to do so.
· Chilli peppers: Start picking chilli peppers when immature to encourage a long cropping season. Similarly to sweet peppers (above) the orange, red and purple coloured ones take a bit longer to reach their mature colour than the green ones, but they can be harvested and eaten at any stage.
Storing
Sweet peppers can only be eaten fresh and don’t store well at all unless made into a conserve, soup or sauce and frozen. Chillies are slightly different, and most of the time end up being chopped up very small, so maintaining its shape and texture isn’t too much of an issue.
· Pickling - chillies can be pickled in vinegar with herbs and other pickled vegetables.
· Preserving in olive oil – chillies can be preserved in olive oil to be used at a later date, and the oil the chilli’s been in can be used in cooking too.
· Freezing – Surplus chillies can be frozen to be used in cooking later on in the year. Once defrosted they go soggy and lose their texture and shape, so it’s better to chop them up small and use them in recipes - they maintain their flavour well.
Health Benefits of Chillies and Peppers
Peppers a packed full of vitamins A, C and K which support the immune system and cells. They’re full of antioxidants too.
Chillies contain capsaicin which could reduce cholesterol and also help reduce the risk of stomach ulcers.
Chilli and Pepper Pests and Diseases
Chillies and peppers are prone damage to common greenhouse pests, such as aphids, whitefly and red spider mite. The best way to control them is to keep the greenhouse well ventilated.
For Best Results
If aphids become a problem, use Plant Rescue Bug Killer, which is formulated to control all insect pests associated with fruit and vegetables, including white fly and aphids.
To encourage as many fruit to grow as possible, feed regularly with a high potash feed, such as Nutri Tomato Plant feed.
You May Also Need
Bio-Gro Black Gold – improves yields and produces stronger, healthier plants.
Growpots – fit into a grow bag for easy watering and support.
The Giant Easy Polytunnel – Maximum warmth and moisture retention. Ideal for growing compact varieties of chilli and pepper.
