Plan · field guide
How to Grow Peppers
Peppers love heat and punish rushing. Set them out too early and they sulk for weeks, sitting in cold soil while the warm-weather plants take off. Get the timing and the basics right and one plant can hand you about 4 pounds of fruit.
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Do not rush the heat
Peppers are a warm-season crop. Wait until nighttime lows stay above 55 to 60 F before you set plants out. In cold soil they stall, the leaves turn purple, and growth stops until it warms up.
A simple test: if you would still want a jacket at night, your peppers do too. Hold the transplants a week or two longer rather than planting into a cold snap. They will catch up fast once the soil warms.
Space and sun
Give each plant room. Set bell peppers 18 inches apart in the row, with 30 inches between rows. Crowd them and you trade airflow for disease and small fruit.
Peppers need full sun, which means 6 to 8 hours of direct light a day. Less than that and you get plenty of leaves but few peppers.
Water evenly
Aim for about 1 inch of water a week, rain included. The key word is steady. Peppers that swing from bone dry to soaked are the ones that crack and rot.
Steady water also prevents blossom end rot, the sunken brown patch on the bottom of the fruit. That damage comes from uneven watering that blocks calcium uptake, the same problem that hits tomatoes. Mulch holds moisture so the soil does not dry out between waterings.
Go easy on nitrogen
Too much nitrogen grows a big leafy plant with few peppers. If your plant is tall, dark green, and bushy but barely setting fruit, back off the high-nitrogen feed.
Use a balanced fertilizer, or one a little higher in phosphorus and potassium, once flowers appear. Feed the fruit, not the leaves.
Harvest green or ripe
Bell peppers take about 70 days to first harvest from a transplant, or close to 100 days if you start from seed. You can pick them green and firm, or leave them on the plant.
Most peppers sweeten and change color, often to red, if you let them ripen on the plant. Leaving fruit on slows new flowers, so picking some green keeps the plant cranking out more. Cut peppers off with snips instead of pulling, which can snap a branch.
Keep going
Questions, answered straight
The two usual causes are cold and too much nitrogen. Nights below 55 to 60 F stop fruit set, and a high-nitrogen feed grows leaves instead of peppers. Wait for steady warm nights and switch to a balanced fertilizer once flowers show.
Space bell peppers 18 inches apart in the row, with 30 inches between rows. That spacing gives each plant airflow and full sun, which means fewer diseases and bigger fruit.
About 70 days to first harvest from a transplant, or close to 100 days if you grow from seed. After that first pepper, a healthy plant keeps producing for weeks.
Either works. Green peppers are firm and slightly sharp. Leave them on and most sweeten and change color, often to red. Picking some green keeps the plant setting new fruit, so do both.
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