I've got 8 sweet pepper plants (4 green and 4 orange) that I started from seed this year. The plants themselves appear to be doing well enough (i.e. they are still alive and have leaves) and range from 1ft to maybe 2.5ft tall. They all have blossoms, but none have actual fruit yet. Being in Vancouver with the cooler temperatures already, is it worth letting them keep growing in the hopes that fruit will develop and start to ripen before the weather turns really rainy? I'm torn between giving them a chance and taking them out to use the space for a winter garden.
Peppers like lots of heat. Maybe if you have a really warm fall, you might have some hope that you will get some green peppers. Your space might be better used for a winter garden.
Thanks for your reply. I went to pull them last week, and lo and behold, there were a few tiny little peppers on there. I'm going to give them a few more weeks (provided the nice weather holds). I'd be curious to know when other Vancouverites pull their peppers.
I picked my first orange pepper yesterday. It was very good. :) I just hope that the rest of them have a chance to mature.
We gave up growing peppers and tomatoes outside a few years ago. We put up a hoop house, and grow them there. And this summer, I am especially grateful we have it, as we have had a normal tomato harvest, and are starting to harvest peppers.
I guess we've discussed this before re: tomatoes, but peppers do fall in the category of marginal outdoor veggies in this area. At least they don't crap out from blight like the tomatoes, but I've never gotten a worthwhile crop of decent bell peppers outdoors in many decades of trying. In the greenhouse, we've been harvesting the California Wonder's for a month or more (excellent quality and size this year too, in spite of the sub-par weather outside!). The one pepper that always came thru outdoors was "Gypsy"...not a bell shaped type but just as good once you chopped them up as you do 90% of the time anyway. If I didn't have the greenhouse I'd still grow Gypsy, or nothing. We did get decent hot peppers outside too, now I think of it. There are early forms of jalapeno as well as Thai Dragon's which seem to produce a worthwhile crop outdoors.
What colour does the gypsy turn? Is it a red one.? Do you manage to pick them when they are really ripe, or do you pick them when they are green.
Gypsy starts out a light green, when it tastes like the green bells. Later the colour shifts to yellow then eventually red...still well ahead of other varieties but getting red ones doesn't happen till late in the season like maybe now. I know, the red ones are much sweeter, and rich in vitamins so we're told...if we can wait that long :-)
Thank you. Maybe I will try some Gypsy peppers next year. A red pepper has more Vitamin C than an orange. I'm not sure how orange peppers compare, but they are the sweetest peppers. :)
I've grown the Gypsy pepper, and it did ripen for me in the hoop house, but I found it somewhat unproductive. That's one of the things I liked about the Krimzon Lee- the plants were loaded. Another one I plan to try next year is Lipstick, which should have an even shorter ripeing date than Gypsy, and has no heat but is just a sweet pepper. The Krimzon Lee (long red peppers in the image) are very sweet, but have just a touch of heat to them.
we had a huge pepper crop this season last. Started with 186 plants of mixed varieties, they reached their peek a month later than normal here in Minnesota. We had a couple damaged by high winds, but the harvest was extended till we had to tarp all the pepper areas, this, is a chore with 184 plants; however, we extended the season another 3 weeks, the last of the peppers are in the dehydrator now. A majority of the crop were Bhut Jolokia, a.k.a. Ghost pepper, touted as the hottest in the world, and they are VERY, VERY hot. Below are a few pics of One days picking, being prepared for going into the dehydrator, a scene that was repeated every three days from july till last week sorry for the bad photography Pictures are from fresh...to ready to meet the grinder... We had Just picked two more pails, that aren't in these pics, the fresh ones here are the last picking. Some ready to be cut, the last are dryed and ready to be processed into powder.
