growing bell pepper plants

years ago i grew bell peppers. i put about 10 plants in. they all grew fine with about 4 large peppers on each plant. i couldn't wait to make sausage and peppers but i found that i could only get to batches as the peppers "shrink" when fried. for this reason i stopped growing them. if you grow peppers do you plant alot of them in order to make it worthwhile. i know its a crazy kind of question but just interested in your answers. thanks

Herbie, it'll depend on the type of peppers you grow. Some peppers, it seems, will produce much less fruit than other types. This could be because of the variety itself or also becus of the weather conditions. It could also be becus of what the peppers are being fed, or not fed.

It appears to me they are heavy feeders but prefer to be fed in stages (breakfast, lunch, dinner) rather than all at one time. When fed too much at one time they'll simply grow foliage, as so many other plants will do also.

Warmth is a necessity for peppers. Without it they may stay alive, and grow, but if they produce the fruit will be sparse and/or small.

On a good plant, you should get much more that just a few peppers.

For bell types I'd recommend Islander, a purple bell. (One of the few hybrids I grow; well worth growing!)

Shoe, nice lookin peppers! What do you feed them, manure tea?

I grew some bell peppers this year for the first time. I was in the feed store last spring and saw a little flat with 6 starter plants in it and brought it home and stuck them in the garden at the end of a row of tomato plants. I don't really know what kind of bell peppers they are - but the plants never got more than about 20 inches tall, but each one grew bushy, dark green leaves and I have about 6 or eight peppers on each plant at any given time.

Suddenly they are growing like crazy - which I attribute to all the rain we are getting now. Many of them turn bright red on the plant, and most of them never get any larger than a small apple. Last night I picked some peppers and I made them into stuffed peppers, stuffed with a ground meat and rice mixture. They are very tasty - although I don't taste much difference between the green ones and the red ones, but they sure look nice in the dish.

Cindy Lou

Yummy...we had stuffed peppers a week or so ago; first time in years.

Red, I feed them what I feed my maters....sometimes "Tomatoes Alive" if I have any; other times my own feed I make up myself (alfalfa base with amendments added). Will spray fish emulsion when I don't procrastinate also!

horseshoe - thanks for the reply. never had that many peppers on any of my plants. maybe will give them another try next season. thanks again.

Yep; Usually a couple of dozen peppers per plant over the course of a season. Shoe, I can't find a picture or even the cultivar Islander in the PDB. Just can't count on the youngsters anymore. I have grown Lilac, Lavender and Purple Beauty but never encountered Islander.

Islander is only put out by Johnny's Seeds, that I know of anyway. (It may only be in the Commercial catalog but not sure about that.)

'Tis a hybrid and what's so great about it is that it immediately grows purple. (Doesn't have to grow green then "maturing" to purple.) Excellent tasting, excellent plant to grow.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/prodlist2.html?source=&cat_id=1&parent_id=39&topcatid=1&subcatid=39&subcatid2=452&topname=Vegetable%20Seeds&subname=Peppers&subname2=Colored%20Sweet%20Bell&ct=comm&level=2

So that means you are adding this beauty to the PDB, shoe? lol

Herbie- peppers are supposed to be perennial tropicals. Can you overwinter them so they can come back stronger the second year? I was told they do but I have ripped them out being impatient and frustrated.

daisy...you put in the "Islander" variety and I'll fill in the blanks and add a pic or so...deal!?

Nyah nyah!!!... ;>)

http://davesgarden.com/pdb/go/74563/index.html

Here ya go, shoe! ; 0

Okay dokey...'tis done!
Much obliged!

You just tell me if you want anymore done cuz I like doing that (filling out forms is fun lol!)

Do you want me to add the picture from above?

I added that pic too. Plus another one, showing them changing color.

Thanks for the offer though! Much obliged. (Sure wish you could taste these babies! Great in salads, raw...eaten like an apple, or as my DD luvs em, filled with cheese and thrown on the grill! Yumpin' yiminy!)

ooohhh- I wish that I could but I just cannot grow peppers here without a greenhouse. It just gets too darn cold at night. Ocean breezes and all that stuff. But when I get that GH, watch out!

daisyavenue - can't overwinter peppers here in upstate new york, at least i have never heard of anyone doing it.
horeshoe - i have a johnny seeds catalogue and i will look for the islander pepper you suggested. thanks again.

you're welcome, herbie. Order now or very early in the Spring...they easily sell out fast.

I had one pepper overwinter outside for three seasons. Then we had really low freezing weather the next year, in the teens. Well, low for FL. It died down, but came back each season. I've never had any since that reached the maturity that one had, so it may have been a holdover from the year before we bought the house.

I'm thinking about trying to overwinter a few I have in pots this year, just to try it. If it gets really cold at night, I can always bring them in, well, DH can!

I was going to try growing a few plants in a wheelbarrow so they could be wheeled in and out of a shed when frost arrives to extend their growing season. But our Hungarian Banana peppers, usually only a couple of feet tall, are above 5' now and trussed like turkeys to a stake at the center of them. I suspect light issues. Happily for my vegies, a certain magnolia died back by half, but their sky is being considerably darkened by a certain gourd that having conquered the magnolia is now reaching for the roof...Has anyone grown the gourd 'Cucuzzi caravazi' from Pinetree? Can you eat it at any stage or just swat at raccoons?

I looked it up yesterday in the Plants DataBase...

http://davesgarden.com/pdb/go/73599/index.html

Good info there. Also, PlantScout has it linked to a supplier if ya'll want to read a bit more!

'Shoe, thankx for pointing me to the Plant Database. I just entered our experience/description there, if anyone's interested. As a member of the Lagenaria group, it is a white, night-blooming flower. This one's flowers are creped, fringed, fragrant, about 3 1/2" and suspended on about foot-long stalks. Float these vines high to admire sillouettes of flowers and tendrils at twilight from beneath.

If anyone would like seeds for SASE or trade or free, email me. One way or another, gravity will bring them down.

Hey, Herbie! We're neighbors! You might want to try a hybrid called Canape Bell. They're small - only about 2 - 2 1/2 inches long, but they're very tasty and I got several dozen from each plant. They make fabulous stuffed appetizers and have a tangy little flavor that I like in scrambled eggs.

Another variety that grow very well here is the Cubanelle Fryer. (Absolutely tasteless in the green stage, but great as they change colors. They're supposed to be best at the yellow-green stage, but mine seem to skip that step and go right from dark green to red - go figure!) I grow these year round in my sunroom. I get about 6-8 per plant and they grow easily from seed. (The Canape's I grew from seedlings I got through Hirt's Greenhouse. Unfortunately their prices doubled this year, so they're off my list, and I don't know who else has them. I'll keep you posted if I find them.)

Does the same rule for hybrid tomatoes apply to peppers - as in, they will not grow true so don't bother saving the seed??

What else do you grow? I keep trying squash but have had NO success...

Sequee --- If you are still looking for "Cubanelle" Tomatoe Growers Supply Company has them as 30 seeds for $2.25. I always buy from them. They are good people and the seeds are always fresh.