If you’ve just started planning the perfect layout for your veggie garden, you might be looking for some ideas on what to grow. As temperatures slowly start to rise in the spring, you may be dreaming about vibrant tomato vines, mouth-watering cucumbers, or the perfect bell pepper plant.
While bell peppers might not be the easiest fruit to grow — yes, just like tomatoes, bell peppers are technically a fruit — they are certainly well worth the challenge. These warm-weather species make a great addition to refreshing salads or as a healthy afternoon snack. They’re also great eaten raw or cooked.
With that in mind, it’s time to learn the fundamentals of growing a bountiful bell pepper plant. We’ll show you the different types of peppers to consider and the basic elements needed to cultivate these delicious, versatile, and crisp veggies (er, fruit).
Peppers 101: Pepper Varieties
Before we get into the technicalities of growing bell peppers, it’s important to understand a few basic things.
The bell pepper plant (Capsicum annum) belongs to the nightshade family, which spans more than 2,300 species, including eggplants, potatoes, and tomatoes. One of the greatest attributes of peppers is that they come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes, making them one of the most versatile foods used in many different cuisines worldwide.
Unlike their spicier cousins — like jalapeños and serrano peppers — bell peppers do not contain capsaicin, the compound responsible for pungency and heat in hot peppers.
Ever wondered if green bell peppers and red peppers come from different plants? Well, they’re actually the same pepper that are simply at different maturity stages. They start green, but if you leave them to mature on the plant long enough, they’ll eventually achieve their full color: a bright and deep crimson red.
Fun fact: The longer you allow your bell peppers to mature, the higher their vitamin C content. Red bell peppers that are allowed to mature fully also have a sweeter flavor!
While peppers are quite resilient to garden pests, you may want to opt for resistant varieties to ensure your pepper-growing experience goes smoothly. Some of the best species include:
Green peppers that turn into red sweet peppers: Sweet red Marconi, Lady bell, Gypsy, Lipstick, Bellboy, Sweet California wonder
Orange peppers: Orange sun, Milena
Yellow peppers: Golden California wonder, Honey bell, Marengo
No matter if you decide to grow just one type of bell pepper plant or you want to put your gardening skills to the test with a pepper bundle, you’ll need to learn the basics of how to grow thriving and healthy plants.
How to Grow a Bell Pepper Plant: The Basics
The first thing you should know about bell pepper plants is that they’re quite sensitive to cold temperatures, so it’s a good idea to start them indoors before their growing season begins (spring/summer).
Keep in mind that sweet bell peppers have a long growing season — they take between 60 to 90 days from sowing to harvesting — so the sooner you get started, the better. It’s recommended to sow your bell pepper seeds 8 to 10 weeks before your last spring frost date. You can use the Back to the Roots grow calendar to find out when that is.
Germination occurs within 10 days, and once the first set of true leaves appears, you can begin transplanting them outside if that’s your goal. (Bonus: Bell pepper plants can also be grown indoors.)
But before you move your bell pepper plant out into the open, make sure to check that the nighttime temperatures do not go below 70°F, as this may shock your young plants and contribute to their premature demise. The best way to support these plants is to wait for the last frost danger to pass.
As a true warm-weather crop, bell peppers love direct sunlight and full sun, so place them in a location where nothing is blocking the light. If you live in a climate with extreme high heat and intense sunlight, your peppers may be susceptible to sunscald, especially the younger leaves and more tender fruits. While they may look aesthetically unappealing, sunscalded bell peppers are still edible and equally tasty.
Bear in mind that to produce large and healthy fruit, pepper plants need plenty of full sun, at least 6 to 8 hours every day.
Don’t Water Too Much
Finding the right watering balance is the key factor to a thriving bell pepper plant. Since sweet bell peppers cannot tolerate extremely high temperatures, it’s essential to water them appropriately to prevent diseases. If you live in a desert climate or experience a very dry summer season, it may be necessary to hydrate your plants daily — especially in the early morning or evening to prevent water evaporation.
To avoid diseases and pests, such as anthracnose or blossom end rot, avoid overhead watering and make sure you water deeply and evenly at the base of the plant. By doing so, you encourage the development of a strong and healthy root system, which in turn will make your plant more resilient to overcome any bumps in the road.
Select the Perfect Soil
Bell pepper plants prefer sandy toloamy soil, which is enriched with organic matter. You can either buy a potting mix with these characteristics or purchase all the elements individually and create your own. If you’re not sure what the best option is, don’t be shy — ask one of the staff members at your local Home Depot Garden Center for an opinion.
Note:Fertilizing is an important step in vegetable gardening. But don’t go crazy and over-fertilize as it usually encourages your plant to grow more foliage and produce less fruit, which is obviously not the goal.
Since water is vital for growing bell peppers, choosing the proper soil is undoubtedly the best way to ensure optimal moisture levels. These plants don’t like wet feet, so opting for sandy, loamy soil will ensure good drainage and help the soil temperature rise quicker, a key factor in the cultivation of bell peppers.
Equally important is the soil pH. Veteran gardeners claim that a slightly more acidic soil (between 6.0 and 6.8) is the optimal environment for your bell pepper plant to yield a bountiful harvest. Mixing some coffee grounds into the potting mix is a natural, eco-friendly way to balance the pH levels of the soil and support your plant’s growth.
Pro tip: To prevent blossom end rot — which is primarily a calcium nutrient deficiency — crush some eggshells and add them to the soil. It’s an easy, organic way to provide your plants with an extra nutritional boost.
To speed up the warming of the soil and help retain some moisture during hotter days, consider covering it with a dark mulch.
Choose Your Container
If you live in a small apartment with a tiny balcony and think you don’t have enough space to grow bell pepper plants, think again!
Bell peppers are a perfect match for container gardening and raised beds, so you can easily squeeze them into even the smallest spaces. Since these veggies (OK, fruits) require good drainage, a raised fabric bed — likethis one from Back to the Roots — is a fantastic and affordable home for your bell pepper plant.
The Back to the Roots Fabric Raised Beds are made with durable felt and are double stitched, so you can easily move them around without worries. They also come with internal grow walls to prevent root tangling between different plants, which means you can plant all sorts of different veggies, herbs, and houseplants simultaneously.
Keep in mind that, like tomatoes, bell peppers benefit from some type of staking or structural support. Tomato cages are a great alternative, and they’re easy to set up. Just make sure you put them in place when the plants are still young, as it can be tricky to position them around fully mature plants.
Growing Bell Pepper Plants Is Rewarding and Fun
The coolest thing about peppers is that they come in all sizes and shapes, and you can find a variety that caters to your taste. From sweet to spicy, they offer a great range of flavors that will take your cooking to the next level.
While growing and maintaining a bell pepper plant does come with its challenges, you’ll feel incredibly proud when that first tiny pepper makes its debut in the world. To learn more tips and tricks for cultivating these crunchy and delicious edibles, check out our comprehensive guide on how to grow peppers from seed to harvest.
It's recommended to sow your bell pepper seeds 8 to 10 weeks before your last spring frost date. You can use the Back to the Roots grow calendar to find out when that is. Germination occurs within 10 days, and once the first set of true leaves appears, you can begin transplanting them outside if that's your goal.
Plant pepper seeds eight to 10 weeks before your region's average last frost date. Make sure the potting soil is moist before planting. Scatter the seeds over the soil surface, then lightly cover with more potting mix. Use a seedling heat mat to speed up germination.
Most pepper seeds germinate within 7-21 days, but some can take longer than that so be patient and keep them consistently warm. Seedling heat mats can help greatly, even after they're sprouted – peppers grow fastest in warmer temperatures.
Growing bell peppers isn't difficult, but temperature is an important factor. While they're fairly easy to grow, pepper plant care in these early stages is critical. Always start pepper plant seedlings indoors. The seeds need the warmth of your house to germinate.
Transplants take about 6 weeks to produce from seeds. Bell pepper transplants are best planted in mid-March to early April at the latest. So, count back 6 weeks from when you want to plant your transplants into the garden to determine when to plant the seeds.
Start your seeds 6 to 8 weeks before you plan to transplant them into the garden. Peppers grow best when the soil is warmed and daytime temperatures are regularly over 75º F, typically late April or May in Santa Clara County. Temperatures below 50º–55º F cause flowers to abort or the fruits to be misshapen.
Keep bell peppers well-watered, but never leave soil soggy. Water to moisten soil about 6 inches deep, then let it dry slightly. Watering is especially important during fruit set, when tiny peppers take the place of blossoms, and as the bells mature. Consistent moisture helps keep peppers firm and healthy.
As a general rule, pepper plants should be watered about once per week and allowed to thoroughly drain. However, this frequency can vary significantly based on the temperature, wind, and the size of the plant and its growing container. During a heat wave, you may need to water your potted peppers every day!
Generally, peppers with larger fruits often tend to produce lower yields than the smaller ones. Therefore, on average, a healthy large bell pepper will produce 2 to 4 fruits per plant at any time and 8 to 10 bells in a season.
Peppers need at least six to eight hours of full sun during the growing season. Ideally, soil should be well drained and contain high organic matter. However, peppers can thrive in moderately fertile soil.
Difficulty: Easy, but an early start is essential. Peppers work well in large containers. Timing: Peppers need warm temperatures and a long growing season.
The three key nutrients you need for your pepper plants are nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium. Nitrogen is the most important element as it supports the regulation of photosynthesis, which then encourages foliage production and leafy growth.
Peppers will grow well just by themselves, but they're more productive if you plant two of them together. I started these peppers separately in jiffy pots, then grouped them together when it was time to move them to bigger pots.
Bell peppers are a perennial in tropical areas. But in colder climates, they are grown as annuals and they really have no tolerance for cold weather. They require a fairly long growing season, often up to 90 or even 100 days, so the shorter your summer, the sooner you need to start seeds indoors.
Most sweet peppers mature in 60-90 days; hot peppers can take up to 150 days. Keep in mind, however, that the number of days to maturity stated on the seed packet refers to the days after transplanting until the plant produces a full-sized fruit.
Plant no more than 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep. Except for surface-sown seeds, the general rule is to sow seeds about twice their length in depth. Pepper seeds are typically around 1/8 inch in diameter, so should be planted about 1/4 inch deep, and no deeper than 1/2 inch.
Like most garden plants, sweet peppers prefer loamy soil that's rich in organic material and has a neutral pH. They also crave plenty of sun and regular watering.
Peppers are usually started indoors six to eight weeks ahead of the last frost. That means, in some areas, you'll want to start seeds around Valentine's day. In more northern, high-altitude places that might mean tax day. And pepper plants aren't set out right after the first frost.
Bell peppers need full sun to grow and ripen properly, so keep them in a sunny spot in your vegetable garden—unless you live in a climate susceptible to extremely high heat and intense sunlight, in which case shade cloth or nearby plants can be used to manage temperatures. 4. Use the right fertilizer.
Serrano peppers are slender and long, turning from green to bright red when fully ripe. They are usually picked when bright green, and they are super easy to grow at home!
While in starter cups, and soon after transplanting, gently pinch off flower buds to help the plant generate more growth before flowering. Pick peppers soon after they ripen. Regularly harvesting the plant's peppers encourages it to produce more. If fertilizing, reduce nitrogen level once plant begins to flower.
Although many peppers are strong plants that do a good job at holding themselves upright, sometimes they need a little help — especially toward the end of the season. If you live in an area in which the growing season is long, peppers tend to grow taller (sometimes three or more feet) than they would otherwise.
Often, if you overwater peppers, it can cause them to get yellow leaves, droop, stunt their growth, and have general poor health. How Does Watering Affect the Heat of Peppers? The heat level can vary in all hot peppers, depending on the growing conditions/weather/water, etc.
Don't overwater your peppers! Let the soil dry out between watering. On hot days, you may need to water every day, but on cooler days you may only need to water every few days, so keep an eye on the soil. Even if the soil dries out and a pepper plant wilts a bit, it will recover quickly with a dose of water.
Growing peppers in containers is a great way to harvest homegrown produce even when you're short on space. With the right tools, the proper plants, sunlight, fertilizer and water, you'll be picking a peck of peppers before you know it.
If peppers are planted too close, they'll grow into their neighbors. This reduces air circulation around the plants and the foliage won't dry off as quickly after watering or rain. Wet foliage is an invitation to disease.
The reality is that because the two have similar growth requirements, they can in fact be grown quite successfully together. Diseases common to both tomato and pepper include Verticillium wilt and bacterial spot.
Peppers of all types are grown as annuals by most gardeners: sown, grown, picked, then condemned to the compost heap at the end of the season. Yet these hard-working plants are perennials that, given the right conditions, will happily overwinter to next year.
For the best harvests and healthy plants, we like to plant pepper plants in deep beds, we recommend 18-24" of soil depth. Small peppers (less than one foot high) can grow well in two-gallon containers, but bigger plants need at least five-gallon pots, and all peppers thrive best with more room.
2) What are the easiest peppers to grow? If you don't want to wait too long for germination, Capsicum Annuum are probably the easiest to grow. These include jalapeños, serranos, cayennes, Thai peppers, Anaheim, Hatch, poblano, many ornamentals and more.
So a picky pepper plant with no flowers or fruit may be the result of an incorrect temperature zone, either too hot or too cold. Another common reason for a pepper plant not producing may be blossom end rot, which is caused by a calcium deficiency and occurs when night temps are over 75 degrees F.
Plants like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in particular will benefit from shell fertilizer, Savio said. The extra calcium will help prevent blossom-end rot. Broccoli, cauliflower, Swiss chard, spinach and amaranth are also calcium-packed and could use extra from eggshells.
Perlite, vermiculite, or sand all work great for aiding in drainage. They also give the roots more channels to easily grow through. 1/4 water and nutrient retention. Peat moss and coco coir increase the soil's ability to retain nutrients.
Peppers – Pepper plants make good neighbours for asparagus, basil, carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, oregano, parsley, rosemary, squash, Swiss chard, and tomatoes. Never plant them next to beans, Brassicas, or fennel.
How many pepper seeds per hole? When using new or fresh pepper seeds, you can plant one per hole. If you're using old seeds that have a low viability rate, then plant 2-3 per hole. If more than one germinates, thin out the weakest once they have 2-3 sets of true leaves.
These include Bell Peppers, sweet/Italian Peppers, Serrano, Cayenne, Paprika, Hatch Chile Peppers, ornamental peppers like the gorgeous NuMex Twilight pepper, and all of the fast growing Jalapeños. These pepper plants can live between 1.5-3 years.
Why are my pepper plants blooming but not setting fruit? Peppers (especially bell peppers) are sensitive to high and low temperatures during bloom. Pollination and fruit set typically don't occur when daytime temperatures rise above 85 F or when nighttime temperatures drop below 60 F.
Bell peppers are typically large enough to be picked around 10 to 14 days after the fruits first begin to form. This time frame can vary depending on the weather, however, so it is best to check your peppers frequently.
For small-fruited types, however, removing the central growing point early in the season leads to higher yields because it encourages more branching and a bushier plant with more flowers. Pruning or pinching out the growing point of a young pepper transplant improves branching in many varieties.
On average, the bell pepper yield per plant is five to 10 peppers; however, some varieties will produce a few more or less. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension says that eight to 10 plants are enough for a family of four.
They grow well in raised beds, containers, and in-ground gardens. Plant them 18 to 24 inches apart in a sunny, well-drained spot. Pepper plants need at least 6-8 hours of sunlight per day.
Bell peppers are typically large enough to be picked around 10 to 14 days after the fruits first begin to form. This time frame can vary depending on the weather, however, so it is best to check your peppers frequently.
Yes two peppers can be planted together – in fact, planting peppers with other peppers will still produce very successful harvests. However, since they are self-pollinating you don't necessarily need more than one plant if you're short of space. Peppers can also be planted with chilli jalapeño peppers.
They could be stunted by cool weather, especially cool nights. Keep peppers warm and wait to plant outside until the weather has warmed up to 60-70˚ F at night consistently. You'll find once the hot weather arrives and the soil warms up, the peppers should start taking off.
There's really no evidence that certain plants will somehow affect pepper growth, but you may want to avoid planting peppers near cabbage and other brassicas such as broccoli and cauliflower (because peppers prefer slightly different soil acidity levels) and fennel (which some gardeners say inhibits pepper development) ...
As a general rule, pepper plants should be watered about once per week and allowed to thoroughly drain. However, this frequency can vary significantly based on the temperature, wind, and the size of the plant and its growing container. During a heat wave, you may need to water your potted peppers every day!
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