Growing Peppers
 Peppers are one of the most important garden vegetables. A ripe pepper contains about 3 times as much vitamin C as an orange. They can be frozen, dried, or canned in letcho sauces -- and used year round.
They are also the most under productive plant in most gardens. This comes from a lot of poor information about how they grow -- and lack of productive varieties available at greenhouses and garden centers.
Choosing varieties wisely
Pepper seeds range from $80 per lb to $8,000 per lb. Many greenhouses and garden centers grow and push the cheaper varieties because they are more profitable -- and the modern, more productive hybrids are among the most expensive garden veggie seeds.
Since most consumers don't know the difference, they end up buying old varieties like California Wonder which produces very poorly in most of the country. These old varieties will not set fruit if temperatures rise above 90 degrees or fall below the mid 40 degree range. This eliminates fruit production during much of the growing season and results in a poor overall fruit set.
Peppers require high fertility levels
Peppers are heavy feeders, especially when flowers and fruit start to form. Studies have shown that half of the nitrogen will drain out of the leaves of pepper plants at this time without adequate fertility. If enough nitrogen is not available, growth will slow as will production of more flowers for the next fruit set. We feed every week or two throughout the growing season with our all purpose, all organic vegetable fertilizer and are rewarded with continuous production of flowers and more fruit until frost. Stop fertilizing and they stop producing. I could never grow really productive plants until I started fertilizing with this fertilizer -- and doing it heavily. We grow in a highly organic compost based soil.
Peppers like high humidity
Unlike tomatoes and most other garden vegetables, we always plant peppers fairly close together in large beds, and never in rows where they dry out too fast. Every time that you see your pepper plants wilting, they are being stressed which results in reduced fruit production. I like to water them thoroughly in the evenings and wet them down in the early afternoon to prevent wilting. Planting in blocks prevents moisture loss by shading the soil and allows for a nice foliage canopy to protect the fruit from sunscald.
The best pepper bed layout
The best way to grow peppers that I have found is in beds about 5 ft wide -- framed with a PVC pipe support and held in place with horizontal netting. This supports the plants from falling over from the weight of the peppers and eventually helps to support insulating cloth in fall to extend production. I start to harvest peppers in late June or early July and continue until Thanksgiving. That makes our harvest period of peppers one of the longest of any vegetable in the garden.
They grow quite well in containers and can be brought into house in fall for an even longer harvest period.
Many of our customers have had success with overwintering peppers in their home and taking out the same plants into the garden the next year.
THE BEST garden vegetable
 I have been growing Gypsy peppers since the seeds first became available in 1980. Of all the hundreds of varieties of vegetables that I have grown since, Gypsy peppers are probably my favorite garden vegetable. I would be disappointed with fewer than 50 Gypsy peppers per plant and a few years have pushed close to 100 peppers from a single plant. Their mild and sweet flavor makes them incredibly versatile in the kitchen. I use them on sandwiches, salads, in stir fries, chili, stews, soups -- they can be stuffed with a wide range of fillings including cold salads and salsas, either fruity or spicy -- and served either raw and cold or cooked. They are also ideal for people who have a hard time digesting green bell peppers.I find it interesting that about 30 years after they were introduced, restaurants are just beginning to appreciate their culinary versatility and potential.
Other favorites
I love all of the myriad of flavors of the pepper clan and I am still learning how to use many of them. All of the sweet ones are great (I especially like the rich flavor they add to sauces), but I probably like some of the ones that ripen yellow best to snack on -- the latest of which is Flavorburst. The medium hots are very versatile -- Anchos or Pablanos may be the most versatile of these -- they make interesting and spicy stuffed peppers and are also good in stir fries and relishes. Most of the heat of the medium hots is in the white ribs and if this is scraped out they become much more mild. I like the really hot ones in chili and for cooking because they don't interfere with other veggie flavors -- they just add heat. My favorite really hot one is Hot Paper Lantern. They are much more productive than habaneros and are harvestable much earlier. Padrons are the most puzzling of all peppers -- you never know which one will be mildly hot or fiery hot -- although they are much milder when picked very small.
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