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Peppers

Peppers

Organic Pepper Growing Directions

Peppers are an easy and fun plant to grow in your Harvest to Home garden. They love warm weather in fact the hotter the weather, the hotter the pepper! They can grow quite large under good conditions. One jalapeño plant can produce up to 150 peppers!

Most peppers will change color in their lifetime, signalling their stages of growth. They will change in flavor and nutrient content as well. For example, green bell peppers will turn red if you leave them on the vine making them sweeter and more nutritious. All peppers require a good amount of time to grow and must be staked to help with the weight of each pepper. Once the stem and leaves have grown large, you will start to see white flowers which are followed by a pepper. The more flowers, the more peppers! Peppers can attract white flies and caterpillars. “BT ” and “Essential Oil” are recommended.

Organic Pepper Information

Nightshade family

Cool season vegetable

Peppers are native to tropical South America. All types grow on attractive bushy plants ranging from less than a foot high to 4 ft tall. Peppers are classified as sweet or hot and they prefer a long warm growing season.

Sweet peppers: These remain mild even after they ripen and change color. This group includes the big stuffing and salad peppers commonly called bell peppers. The most commonly known is the “California Wonder,” which starts green and ripens red. Others start green or purple, then ripen yellow, orange, or even brown.

Other sweet types include sweet cherry peppers, used for pickling; long, slender Italian frying peppers and Hungarian sweet yellow peppers, both used for cooking.

Hot peppers (chilies): These vary from pea sized types to narrow 6-7 inch long peppers, but all are pungent, ranging from mildly hot Italian Pepperoncini to nearly incandescent habanera strains like Caribbean Red. Among the most popular hot peppers are Jalapenos, used fresh, dried, or pickled. Others include various selections of Anaheim, a mildly spicy pepper from New Mexico used for making canned green chilies and the attractively strung bunches called ristas. Cayenne types are usually dried, powdered, and used as a spice. Hungarian Hot Wax and Fresno Chile Grande mostly used for pickling and cooking. Mexican cooking calls for a wide variety of hot peppers, among them are the Poblano.

Best site: In a sunny location in hot weather. The hotter the weather the hotter the pepper!

Pruning and training: Pepper plants need to be staked to help support the growth and weight of the peppers. Harvest to Home will provide proper staking.

Time to harvest: Depends on the variety, harvest in 7 to 16 weeks.

Harvest: Most peppers can be picked green or purple after they have reached good size, but flavor typically becomes fuller and sweeter as fruit ripens into mature color, which varies by variety. To harvest any kind of pepper, snip the stem with hand pruners or scissors.

Yield: Varies by variety, can be 15 to 150 per plant.

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