Seeds from the store?

Can I take the red and yellow peppers I buy from the veggie section of the store and put the seeds down and have the red and yellow peppers in my garden?

Deb

Possibly - if they are hybrids you will not get peppers that are true to the one you got it from, although you should still get peppers. But isn't that part of the fun?

I know this sounded like a silly question...but I thought if I just want one red pepper plant and one yellow pepper plant, why buy an entire pack of seeds. Thanks, Deb

It's not a silly question--lots of people post asking about growing things from seeds that they got from fruits & veggies they bought. Zarebeth's right--more than likely the peppers you bought were a hybrid of some sort, so you may or may not wind up with peppers that look and taste like the ones you bought, but maybe you'll end up with something even better, you never know! But if you want to know for sure what you're getting, then buying a packet of seeds is the better approach.

Not a silly question. My personal preference would be to spend the $1 on a pack of seeds and know what to expect...especially if you take into account all the time that goes into growing veggies.

- Brent

You could buy one pack of each, sow a couple and trade the rest...

Holland is doing something new with seeds -- as sort of a "value added" marketing program: they are putting seeds in a colored pellet and then selling a mix of seeds. This means you could buy a package with green, yellow and red in the same package, and you'd know the color of the fruit by the color of the pellet. Try Botanical Interests at www.tinyseeds.com, or reneesgarden.com or do a google search on "kitchen seeds" (I forget the name of the company) and see if you can find some.

I bought yellow & red tomatoes from tinyseeds this way, and I know I saw some others at Renee's.

Suzy

From peppers you might get Nightshade, which is deadly.

What is Nightshade?

Don't worry--you can't get nightshade from peppers. They are in the same family (as are potatoes) but peppers are in genus Capsicum and nightshade is genus Solanum and when you grow seeds you absolutely can't get something that's a different genus than what you started with. Whatever you get from your seeds will still be a pepper, it just may not be exactly the same as the pepper you started with.

I don't dispute your knowledge, but many years ago I used pepper
seeds from hybrid peppers and was told I had grown nightshade.

Perhaps the nighshade seed was already in the soil or blown in from the wind.

Either some other seeds got mixed in somehow or the person who told you that you had nightshade was incorrect. It is absolutely impossible from a genetic standpoint to get nightshade from peppers.

Of course I can't remember who sent them to me but a fellow DG member sent me some BEAUTIFUL fresh peppers years ago so I could have the seeds. She didn't have any dried so she sent me the peppers! I did it myself and it worked great!

Nicole

As stated above...it is genetically impossible to get nightshade from peppers, tomatoes, potatoes or eggplants. It just can't happen...it's like getting alligators from iguanas... Other factors had to be at work...and the suggestions given are quite plausible.

As for the red and yellow pepper thing...you should get peppers that ripen in the colors that you buy, but the size, wall thickness and taste will probably be different.

Most peppers start out green and ripen to the other colors.....some peppers will start out sort of white and ripen first to yellow, then orange and then red...showing all three on the same plant...very nice indeed.
Tomato Growers Supply offers one called Blushing Beauty that does this.