Peppers

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Peppers are wonderful plants for a beginner or advanced gardeners alike. They love the summer sun and will happily produce large yields of peppers all season. The fruit can be used in a variety of dishes and can combine well with your home grown tomatoes for delicious salsas and sauces. 

Peppers come in hot and sweet varieties. It is IMPORTANT that you know what you have in your garden. Peppers contain a chemical called capsaicin, which is what gives peppers their heat. A sweet variety, like a bell pepper, has no capsaicin. Hot varieties have a huge variation in how much they have. Some peppers have so much capsaicin that just touching the fruits while harvesting will leave noticeable residue on your hands. Caspian is an oil. It’s hard to wash off and will burn any mucus membrane you touch like your nose, mouth, and eyes. If you choose to plant very hot peppers in your garden, get gloves that are labeled ‘chemical resistant’. Regular vinyl and latex gloves can let the capsaicin right through. Always wash your hands after handling any hot pepper. 

Now on to growing instructions:

Climate
Peppers are technically perennials, but they are not frost tolerant so are almost always grown as annuals. They like the summer heat. Plant them after the danger of frost has passed. There is a balancing act with peppers. They do not like cool nights, but they also have long ripening times. You’ll need to find the right balance of waiting for nighttime temperatures to get warm, while still leaving enough time in your growing season to harvest ripe peppers. Check the tag for “Days to Maturity” so you can make sure to have enough time before harvest when you plant.

Sun
Peppers need full sun with at least 6 hours of direct sunlight. There is a bit of a catch though — pepper fruits are susceptible to sunscald. The sides of the pepper most exposed to the sun can turn a leathery/woody texture that is tan and gross looking. It does not damage the rest of the fruit and you can cut that part out when preparing the pepper to eat. However, the wound can invite disease and pests. Sun damage can also lead to cracks in the pepper skin. Again, this doesn’t affect the pepper fruit, but can make the skin a less desirable texture. The best way to prevent sunscald is to grow a healthy plant with lots of leaves. The leaves shade the peppers from direct sunlight. Defoliation from insects or nutrient and water imbalances can leave the fruit exposed. If this happens, you can build little canopies of 30% shade cloth. If you live in an area with really extreme sunlight, you can also plant peppers in an area where they still get 6 hours of sun but get shade from the hottest afternoon sun.

Soil
Peppers grow shallow roots and need a light, well-draining, loamy soil for their roots to really spread out. If your soil is less than optimal, the fix is almost always compost.

Fertilizer
Peppers are a little finicky in the feed department. As mentioned earlier, you want the peppers to produce a nice crop of leaves early on to shade your peppers as they mature. However, once peppers start to form, you want the plant to put all its energy into the fruit, not the leaves. The best way to achieve this is to encourage the different types of growth through feed. When planting your seedlings, apply a nitrogen heavy fertilizer with a good micronutrient package, especially calcium and magnesium. Something along the lines of a 10-5-5 Cal-Mag formula. If you find slightly different nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium ratios, that’s ok. Once you see flowers, switch to a lower nitrogen formula like a 5-10-10. The phosphorus and potassium help with the fruit setting. Peppers prefer a steady amount of nutrients over time, not big doses all at once, so a light rate once or twice a month is ideal. 

Water
Peppers prefer evenly moist soil; they do not really like to dry down cycles the way a tomato does. The shallow roots will be unhappy if you flood them. A drip irrigation system on a timer is ideal for peppers, but a light soaking with a hose will also be fine, just be careful not to get water on the leaves or fruits.

Pests & Diseases
Peppers can get blossom end rot the same way tomatoes do. This is a calcium deficiency or an excess of nitrogen and water that is preventing the uptake of calcium in your soil. This is why we want to stop the high nitrogen feed before it sets fruit and keep the soil evenly moist. If your soil is low in calcium, add a fertilizer with calcium or amend the soil with bone meal. 

Peppers can also get powdery mildew if your conditions are cool and moist. A vegetable garden-safe fungicide that treats powdery mildew is your best bet here. Always read the manufacturer’s instructions and follow them carefully. More is not better. 

Mosaic viruses cause a mottled, sickly-looking pattern on the leaves of the pepper plant. You cannot do anything once a plant has the virus. You can take a clean, disposable razor blade and cut off the infected parts in hopes of saving the plant. If the virus is widespread, you will unfortunately have to rip out the infected plants entirely. 

Mosaic and other viruses are spread by insects, so controlling white fly, aphids, and thrips can keep your plant healthy. A soap-based or other vegetable garden-safe pesticide can be used if you have problems with these pests. For aphids and white flies, a hard spray of water can work well. Just make sure to time your water jet treatment so the plant and fruits have time to dry out before nightfall. If you leave the plant wet overnight, you will likely cause yourself some fungal problems.

Maintenance
Pepper plants can be a bit brittle, and a heavy fruit set can weigh them down. I like to stake or cage my pepper plants to give them support. The higher the yield of a particular variety, the more you will need to stake or cage the plant. Always disinfect your cages and stakes at the end of the growing season so as not to save any diseases for next year’s crop.

The more often you harvest peppers, the more fruit the plant will produce. So get a sharp pair of snips and clip off the peppers at the stems each time you notice a ripe one.

Most peppers can be eaten green. In fact, the difference between the red and the green peppers at the store is not usually variety, but time. If you want green jalapeños or bell peppers, harvest them green! If you want red ones wait until they are ripe!

So go plant your peppers, and later this summer you can pick them and make pickles, salsa, roasted pepper sauce, stir fry, fajitas, chili powder and flakes, veggie kabobs…