Native to South America capsicums are perennial plants.  You may be lucky enough in a particularly sheltered position, with a little summer shade and protection from the winter winds to get your chilli and pepper plants to survive for years.  Indeed even here on what often seems like ‘Windy Mountain’ we’ve managed to get one chilli plant to survive the winter.

For most of us though, capsicums will be grown as annual plants in the vegetable garden; cropping all summer and autumn they will then be replaced each year.  They are slightly more hardy than tomatoes so its time to get sowing.  A note on seeds, you can use seed dried at home, from tasty chillies and peppers you’ve enjoyed already (from garden or grocers) or you can buy a huge array of seed varieties from any good seed merchant.  Plants grown in the garden may cross polinate so saved seeds may not produce the plants you expect.  Sometimes though garden surprises are good!

How to Grow Capsicums

• Sow seed thinly in a cold-frame or under cloches through February and March.  Allow two to four weeks for germination.
• Don’t let the seedlings get too crowded as the roots need ample room even at this early stage.  Pot up into 5in pots.
• Plant out 12″ apart, after hardening off once all chance of frost has gone.
• Once the soil has warmed thoroughly in early summer mulch thickly.  This will help keep the soil most and improve your chances of avoiding ‘blossom end rot‘ which is a problem in dry hot summers.
• Feed weekly in the early stages of growth but stop once plants start to flower.  Seaweed, fish emulsion or manure tea are all ideal.
• Water in dry weather.  As ‘blossom end rot‘ can be such a problem you really need to ensure soil moisture levels stay constant.  The problem will show itself as a darkened, softened patch at the bottom of the fruit which can quickly take over the whole fruit.  Keep moisture levels constant to prevent this disease which destroys the crop. We water each morning through dry spells.
• Sweet peppers can get a bit top heavy so staking or interweaving with string to give the plants support is worthwhile.
• Harvest July-January depending on weather and protection.  If you can get a plant to survive the winter you’ll be able to harvest three or more times a year and have an almost constant supply.

Choosing Varieties of Capsicum

This can be a real problem as there are just so many to choose from.  We buy sweet ‘bell pepper’ seedlings locally to provide all our large red pepper needs.  We have four favorite reliable varieties.  Serrano and Cayenne chillies are grown from seed and provide year round hot hot hot chillies in fresh or dried form.  A few larger chillies; Hungarian Hot Wax and Numex Big Jim give us spicy large peppers great for stuffing when fresh, or drying and using all winter in sauces such as romesco.

In a tough environment like ours – hot and dry in the summer but cold in winter, while exposed and windy any time – we find the chillies cope much better, crop more heavily and survive longer than sweet peppers.

When to Harvest Capsicums

I have read that sweet peppers can be harvested once they reach full size and that colour makes no difference to the taste.  I have to say I’ve always found the redder the pepper the sweeter the flesh.  We harvest some bell peppers while they’re green as they seem to lend themselves to baking, stuffed with cheese, rice & mushrooms very well at this time.  Most though we leave till red before harvesting.

With chillies they will tend to get both hotter and sweeter as they ripen.  The chillies are a very unpredictable lot.  The same plant will produce fruits with huge variations in heat.  I always taste test a small sliver of chilli before deciding how much to add to a recipe.  But be careful – raw chilli can be surprisingly hot.

Drying Capsicums

If you’re going to dry your chillies or peppers they need to be red.  We have successfully cheated by hanging partly green fruits in the sun to begin drying and continue ripening.  But if you’re drying artificially or indoors the fruit must be red.

Whenever you feel you have too many red peppers (chilli or bell) to consume thread them on a string (we use heavy cotton thread and a needle) and hung somewhere well ventilated.  We’ve dried some indoors out of direct light in a cool drafty room.  We’ve also hung them on the outside of the house to dry in the wind and sun. I have to tell you both ways have produced equally good results.

Chillies dry really well and very quickly but bell peppers need a little more care.  The thicker flesh and higher water content in a bell pepper means they can take an age to dry and will always be more susceptible to rotting later on.  So always store dried bell peppers away from steamy or damp conditions.  That means not hanging huge bunches in a busy kitchen (no matter how pretty they look).  I keep one string hung in the kitchen which will be used relatively quickly and the rest are hanging in the sitting room near the wood burning stove so there is no risk of them getting damp or mouldy.

I rehydrate our peppers by slitting them and soaking in warm water for at least half an hour before adding to my chosen recipe.

Biscombe Chilli Farm in southern Spain (no relation) sell a wide range of organic seeds and chilli based products if you don’t want to bother growing your own!

If you find our site helpful why not make your Amazon purchases through our US link or our UK Amazon links? It costs you nothing more and means we can buy some more seeds!

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