Crop guide

Peppers

Peppers go out after the tomatoes, once the nights stay warm. Keep the water even, stake the heavy ones, and keep picking.

Grown in Ohio, zone 6a. Your frost dates move the calendar; the signals don't. Broadfork goes by where your garden is, not its zone: frost dates for your ZIP code in the US, or the ones you type in anywhere else.

Eight minutes to read. Each section stands on its own.

What you plant

A transplant with a strong root system and six to nine leaves, any flowers or fruit picked off. Seed sown outdoors isn't advised without a hoop house.

When

After the frost, once the nights stay above 50 °F, about two weeks after tomatoes. The data asks as much as 55.

How deep

At the depth it grew in its pot, no deeper. A buried pepper stem rots.

How far apart

18 to 24 inches apart in rows 30 to 36 inches apart; the data runs as close as 12. The app spaces them 12 inches apart.

Sun and soil

At least six to eight hours of full sun. Soil that drains, with organic matter worked in.

Frost

Tender. Frost kills it, and below 50 to 55 °F at night it grows slowly, yellows and drops its flowers.

Family

Solanaceae, the nightshades, with tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant.

Harvest

Green bells at 3 to 4 inches long and firm. Left on, they color, which takes a longer season.

Soil pH

About 6 to 6.8; the data runs from 5.8 to 7.

Starting and buying plants#

Start seed indoors about 8 weeks before you set plants out, earlier than tomatoes; the data runs from 6 weeks to 10.

Sow 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep in a seed-starting mix on a heat mat, at 70 to 80 °F until they come up; the data runs to 90. Then grow them at about 70 °F. They take about 10 days.

Give them bright light, and pinch off any flower buds that form indoors.

To buy, pick sturdy plants with closely spaced leaves and no spots: bacterial disease comes in on bought plants. Pick off any flowers or small fruit before planting.

Planting#

Set them out after the frost, about two weeks after tomatoes, once the nights stay above 50 °F; the data asks as much as 55. In colder nights they grow slowly, yellow and drop their flowers.

Harden them off for a week or two first, bringing them in if a night drops below 55 °F, and plant in the late afternoon or on a calm, cloudy day.

Set each one at the depth it grew in its pot, no deeper, since a buried pepper stem rots. A peat pot's rim goes below the surface.

Water each one in with a high-phosphorus starter fertilizer.

A row cover over hoops keeps off a late frost and insects. Take it off once the plants flower, so pollinators reach the blooms, or when it reaches 80 °F under it.

Short season Where the season is short, lay black plastic to warm the soil, and grow some smaller-fruited peppers beside the bells: they stand cool weather better. Look for varieties sold as cold tolerant.

Mild winter Where winters are mild, plant in spring, and in the warmest places again in summer for a fall crop, set out 12 to 16 weeks before the first freeze.

The season in between#

Water 1 to 2 inches a week, early in the day and at the roots; drip or a soaker hose keeps the leaves dry. Peppers root shallow, so keep the water even, above all at flowering and fruit set: a dry spell drops the flowers and brings blossom-end rot.

Once the soil has warmed, lay 3 to 4 inches of weed-free straw or other organic mulch, kept off the stems. Put down earlier, it can hurt the new roots. Black plastic is the one mulch that goes down first, for its warmth.

Feed by a soil test, or about 2 pounds of a balanced fertilizer such as 10-10-10 per 100 square feet before planting. Then feed a little nitrogen beside the row once the first fruit sets; some sources go by the calendar instead, 3 to 4 weeks after planting. Too much nitrogen makes a big, leafy plant that is slow to fruit.

A heavy plant, a bell most of all, can split: stake it, or run twine along the row between stakes every 3 to 4 feet. Staking also cuts sunscald.

Check the plants for insects each week before they flower.

Harvest#

Pick green bells when they are 3 to 4 inches long and firm, about 70 to 85 days after setting out; the data runs from 55 days to 90.

Cut them off with shears rather than pulling. The stems are brittle and the branches break.

Keep picking: green peppers taken early bring more, and fruit left to color tells the plant to slow its flowering.

For red, yellow or orange, leave them on. Full color comes 35 to 45 days after flowering, by the weather and the variety, and the colored fruit is sweeter.

Hot peppers are hottest fully ripe; jalapeños are usually picked green. Wear gloves to pick and cut hot peppers, and wash your hands after.

Before the first fall frost, pick everything mature green or starting to color, or pull whole hot-pepper plants and hang them.

Short season Where the season is short, few sweet peppers color fully before frost: plan on picking most of them green.

Storing#

Keep peppers in plastic bags in the warmest part of the refrigerator, 45 to 50 °F, for 2 to 3 weeks; the data runs from 1 week to 3. Colder than 45 °F, the skins pit.

Don't soak them after picking: water gets into the hollow and rots it.

Bells freeze well cut in strips, frozen on a tray, then bagged.

Hot peppers dry: pull the plants late in the season, hang them somewhere warm, then keep the dried peppers cool and dry.

Which pepper#

Sweet types include bell, banana, cherry and pimiento; hot ones jalapeño, serrano, cayenne and habanero. The heat sits in the seeds and the white membrane, so taking them out makes a pepper milder.

Heat is measured on the Scoville scale. A bell has none; a jalapeño runs 2,500 to 8,000 units, a habanero 100,000 to 350,000.

Many bell and hot varieties resist bacterial spot, and the code on the packet or tag names the resistance. A resistant variety fends the disease off; a tolerant one catches it, but it spreads slower.

Peppers grow well in containers.

In the app's catalog, among others: California Wonder, Jalapeño, Poblano, Sweet Banana and Habanero.

What goes wrong#

• Flowers or small fruit drop: nights below about 55 °F or above 70, days above about 90, hot dry wind, or dry soil.
• Blossom-end rot: a dark, sunken, dry patch at the blossom end, or on the side near it. Uneven water keeps calcium from the fruit: keep the soil evenly moist, mulch, and don't cut the roots hoeing. Adding calcium seldom fixes it.
• Sunscald: flat, pale patches on fruit left bare to hot sun. Leaf cover prevents it; staking and shade cloth reduce it.
• Bacterial spot: small brown spots under 1/8 inch on the leaves, raised scabby ones on the fruit. It comes in on seed and transplants and spreads by splash and hands. Grow resistant varieties, water at the base in the morning, and clear the plants out at season's end.
• Viruses: twisted leaves and bumpy fruit. There's no cure, so pull the plant. Tobacco mosaic rides on a smoker's hands: wash with soap before handling plants.
• Aphids: sticky leaves, curled near the tips. Wipe off a few and leave the lady beetles to the rest.
• European corn borers and hornworms chew into the fruit. Pick them off into soapy water.

Where it goes next year#

Peppers share a family with tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant. Keep all of them out of a bed for three years before peppers go back; the data runs from two years to four.

When the plants are out, take the debris off the bed and cover the soil for winter.

In Broadfork The bed's rotation card counts the rest years for you and says which families are clear to go back in.

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