Are you thinking of growing some bell peppers in your garden this year, but aren't exactly sure where to start? Bell peppers are actually fairly easy to grow, provided you have the right climate, soil mixture, and meet their watering needs. In this article, organic gardening expert Logan Hailey documents all the steps you'll need to follow in order to successfully plant, grow, and care for bell peppers.
Raw or cooked, sliced or diced, bell peppers are a colorful sweet addition to just about any summer meal. This warm-weather crop is a popular nightshade vegetable for any garden. If you loathe spice but still want a sweet crunch, this is the perfect veggie for you. They lack capsaicin, which is the active compound that gives hot peppers their heat. Plus, they yield in abundance all summer long. Peppers are generally a bit more challenging to grow because they need protection from the cold, plenty of water, and extra fertility. If you keep them happy, you will have plenty of sweet peppers for summer meals and winter preservation. Before deciding to add this vegetable to your garden, there’s plenty of important information that you’ll need to digest. You’ll want to learn everything you can about how they grow, before embarking on your pepper planting journey. Let’s dig into how to grow the best bell peppers your garden has ever seen!
Propagation and Planting
When it comes to propagation and planting, there are a few important factors you need to take into consideration for an effective harvest. Let’s look at some of the basics when it comes to first getting started with planting them in your garden.
How Long Do They Take to Grow?
It can take up to 90 days for a plant to mature. Bell peppers are warm-season annuals that take 60 to 90 days to mature. This means you need to get them started indoors early in the spring or purchase high-quality seedlings to transplant as soon as the weather is warm and the risk of frost has passed. Many varieties take 65-70 days to grow green fruits, but 85-90 days to produce the coveted ripe red bell peppers.
How to Seed
Bell Pepper plants perform best when the seeds are started in a tray indoors. Start pepper seeds indoors at least 8-10 weeks before the last frost. They are slow-growing and need plenty of time to get established so you can jumpstart your garden season. Use a south-facing window, grow lights, or a small greenhouse nursery to start pepper seedlings. It also helps to have a heating pad to get the best germination. You can begin with smaller cell trays, 6-pack trays, or a 4” pot. Some gardeners like to start with smaller cells and then up-pot their pepper plants after 3-4 weeks. Others simply start the seedlings in larger round or square pots. Either way, be sure your baby pepper plants are in a consistent warm space above 60°F, preferably with a heating pad underneath to keep soil temperatures around 80-90°F. Use a soil thermometer probe to determine how warm the soil is. Sow pepper seeds about 1/4” deep in a loamy well-drained potting mix. Keep consistently moist (but never soggy!) for 7 to 14 days until germination. They germinate slower in cold soil, so be patient or warm things up! Once the first cotyledons have appeared, back off the watering only slightly to ensure that the seedlings don’t dampen off (rot at the base).
Cold treating your bell pepper seedlings can yield a larger harvest.
Professional growers use a controlled cold treatment method on their pepper seedlings in order to increase the number of flowers and fruits later on. This is a more advanced technique that requires a controlled space like a small greenhouse with a thermometer and heater. To do it, wait until the third set of true leaves appear and then bring the minimum night temperature inside the nursery down to 53-55°F for 4 weeks. Keep the plants in full sunlight and protect them from harsh winds. After 4 weeks, bring the temperatures up to 70°F all day and night. Then, grow and plant as normal. The plants should be very resilient at this stage. You can yield at least twice as many peppers with this method, however, you will need to seed 1-2 weeks earlier than usual.
Direct Sowing is Not Recommended
Because bell peppers prefer warmer conditions, direct seeding is not recommended. Because peppers need hot conditions and a long growing season, directly seeding them into the garden is not recommended for most climates. Either buy happy seedlings from a local nursery or farm or grow your own seedlings indoors.
Hardening Off
Get your young pepper plant seedlings used to outdoor conditions by a method called hardening off. Pepper seedlings need to have an easy transition from the protected indoors to the unpredictable outdoor weather. Begin hardening off plants about 10 days before transplanting. You can do this by placing them in a protected (but still sunny) area outside and bringing them indoors at night for the first 4-5 days. Then, transition to leaving outside all night long while still in their pots. Give peppers plenty of time to adjust to bigger temperature swings.
Transplanting
Transplanting young seedlings should happen when the weather has warmed up. It is time to transplant when the soil is consistently warm and the risk of frost has passed (typically 2-3 weeks beyond the average last frost date for your region). Seedlings should have robust leaves and small buds, but no open flowers. To transplant bell peppers, begin by gently removing the seedling from its cell, ensuring that its roots have fully filled out the container but haven’t started twirling around and getting root bound. Create a planting hole a few inches deeper and wider than the root ball. Holding at the base of the plant, shimmy the plant out of the container and place it in the soil. Backfill the hole, keeping the soil surface aligned with the top of the root ball. You should never plant peppers deep the way you do with tomatoes.
Plant Spacing
It’s important to give this plant enough room to grow and have enough airflow. Space peppers at 9-12” apart in rows 24-36” apart, depending on the variety. If you plant them too close together they may become stressed from the competition for space, nutrients, and water, resulting in less vigorous plants.
How to Water-In Transplants
A phosphorus-rich solution is an excellent addition to your newly transplanted plant. To get your baby plants off to a good start, you can water-in the transplants with a high phosphorus solution such as a liquid seaweed fertilizer. This boosts root establishment and prevents transplanting shock.
Use Row Cover
Row cover not only keeps warmth and moisture in but also keeps bugs out.
Whether they’re sweet or spicy, peppers like the heat. When we’re growing them in temperate climates like most of the United States, we have to do everything in our power to mimic those tropical conditions that peppers love. Row cover is a gardener’s best friend when establishing bell peppers.
Floating fabric row covers can be secured over wire hoops to provide a buffer against cold weather and early plantings. The only caveat is that you need to open those low tunnels up if the temperatures get above 85°F. If you forget to remove the row cover on really hot days, blossom drop and heat damage can occur.
Companion Planting
Tomatoes can make excellent companion plants. Companion planting is a common organic gardening technique that helps improve garden growth by cultivating a diversity of plants that support each other symbiotically. Some bell pepper companion plants repel pests while others attract beneficial predatory insects or pollinators. Leguminous companion plants can add nitrogen to the soil, while ground cover companions help with weed competition.