Growing green peppers

Growing green peppers should be an integral part of every gardener’s garden! The green pepper is one of the most versatile vegetables you can plant. You can eat them raw, roast them, stuff them, or use them for a flavorful addition to sauces, soups, stews and many other main dishes.

You can start growing green peppers from seed. Plant the seeds indoors about eight weeks before you anticipate the last frost in your area. When growing any peppers, it’s important to remember that they are a tropical plant. Whether you are growing green bell peppers or growing hot peppers, give them plenty of sunlight and keep their soil warm and moist. If you don’t have a sunny window for them, you can give your growing green peppers the light they need with an inexpensive fluorescent fixture that holds two cool-white fluorescent bulbs. Be patient. Pepper seeds are slow to germinate and may take up to ten days. If you don’t have the patience to plant from seed, your local nursery will surely have a selection of several varieties of growing green peppers. After any chance of frost has passed and the soil temperatures reach 75 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit (24 to 27 degrees Celsius) it’s time to transplant your growing peppers into the garden.

Growing green peppers in a container is also an easy way to have fresh peppers for your table. You’ll find that growing green peppers gives you fruit that is quite different from produce you buy at the grocer. flower and fruit gardening guides homegrown green peppers are typically thinner skinned and much sweeter.

Although the techniques for growing green peppers and growing hot peppers are the same, there is a marked difference between the two fruits. Unlike its hot pepper relatives, the green pepper is devoid of capsaicin, the substance that makes peppers hot. The green bell pepper has a sharp, but sweet taste. As it matures, its color will change to red, yellow, orange or purple, depending on the variety and its flavor will lessen in sharpness and become even sweeter.

At harvest time, although ripe peppers will easily pull from the stem, it’s best to cut them. Green peppers are one of the few vegetables that can be frozen without blanching. Wash them thoroughly, slice or chop them and put them in a single layer on a baking sheet to freeze them. After they are frozen, transfer them to freezer bags. Pepper pieces won’t stick together and will be easy to measure for your favorite recipes.

One tip— save the seeds, because next season you’ll want to be growing green peppers again!

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