Anyone here grow bell peppers?

Wow, thanks for the tips. I lost the chance to ripen my last few bell pepper holdouts this year because of our freak snow/ice storm at the end of October. I will definitely be doing this this year, since I'm going to grow more than one bell pepper plant!

my big issue was how to deal with them all
I have two raised bed each about 10' by 3' and ended up with literally hundreds of peppers. I gave away lots, but in the end I roasted them and froze them. So now I have about 20 baggies of multicoloured peppers which I throw in any casserole I make.
The odd thing I will never do again, is plant purple peppers
They cooked and turned green and had all the same features of green peppers.

gas gas gas (jumping jack flash)

GWN, I'm glad Luci asked if you were putting water in those "vases". To me, using that word implied that you were treating them the same as a fresh cut bouquet of flowers. No water is easy-peasy! So just out of curiousity have you tried just picking the peppers and not the whole plant, and you've found they work better with the whole plant then?

In case anyone was wondering, I did call the Master Gardeners and they didn't recommend a variety. Just said they can grow here, but are better in greenhouses since they love heat and our growing season can be kind of short. They said we can usually count on 90 days. Looking at the seed catalog, there are several varieties of bells in the 55-70 day range, so I guess I'll just try a couple this year and see how I do.

The ones picked from the plant and set in the same place will dry out and rot within a week 10 days, whereas the ones on the vines, many lasted a few months
I have seen it suggested that you hang them upside down, but this was much easier for me

Hey, thanks for following up GWN. Love being able to learn from others.

GWN wrote:I have seen it suggested that you hang them upside down, but this was much easier for me

Funny, this was going to be my next question!

BTW, I asked on Territorial's facebook which variety they'd recommend I try here in Vancouver, WA without a greenhouse and they said the Wonder Bell.

do your summers get hot there? I would guess that you are like portland.
I have grown a sweet pepper that is very long and red, the seeds came from an italian company (seeds are out in the shed and it is cold out) I grew them in Eugene Oregon, and up here in central British Columbia.
They are so long, they are great for stuffing, AND they are easy to cut up.
I just find them delicious and so much easier to work with when you are cutting up several peppers.
I think they are called Gypsy.

I SURE MISS territorial seeds up here

I'm giving it a go with six feet this year. Got the seeds going with the boys this morning. Who knows? I'm going to build a 4 x 4 cage and try to fashion a bit of a greenhouse dome with plastic over chicken wire. We get a lot more sun than most in the area and folks I've talked to at sunny farms have successfully grown them.

Thing is, if the climate continues to cool off as it has the last two summers I'm not sure it really matters what I try! My friend's parents have grown tomatoes for decades without effort. Not the last two years.

You know that is what everyone here told me last year, that this was the worst year on record, but what did I know??
I was new here.
However I did very well.
The OTHER thing I did, was that I actually pruned them, they grew SOOOO bushy, I went back to the books and read how to prune the peppers, I think that helped.
I also did hoops over them earlier in the year..... What zone are you in?

We're going to give peppers a go again this year. The year we did best with them, we grew a yellow sweet pepper similar to Gypsy. The typical shaped bells did not do as well. We also left them in wall-a-waters all season that year.
So, this year, we're trying three varieties of miniature bell/sweet peppers, will use the wall-a-waters and possibly include a cloche over the entire area that they're in. I'm also wondering if using aluminum foil (shiny side up) might give them additional heat in our limited sunlight? May try that also.
The varieties I chose this year were Territorial's Mini yellow and Mini red bells, and YumYum Gold.

I made the big mistake last year of planting a pepper carnival mix, which came out a rainbow of colours, predominantly this purple type.
They then went on a cross-pollinated with my italian long peppers.
The whole garden was a mess with about 40 plants and they all had different colours on each bush
I really did not like the purple ones and in fact found them very similar to the green ones that are so hard to digest.

SO L learned to keep my pepper apart this next year......

A user here named Janeeze sent me a little article that said that peppers do better when they are crowded. If that's the case, square foot gardening seems perfect for them so long as you're not planning only one square of them.

Hi curio! Looks like you're pretty new here. Our PNW forum has really perked up lately! I was really tempted by those mini bells. But I also want to try that Gypsy variety! Well, the reality is I currently have no squares available for any peppers and I better work on fixing that first!

Whoa! Just saw GNW's post. Okay, so if I want them crowded, better make sure they are all the same type! Excellent information GNW. Oh, and our weather here is just like Portland's. Hot summer's yes, but not for very long.

Do these look crowded....

@GWN,

boffer wrote:GWN, didn't you say that you get real cold in winter and real hot in summer? Help us out here, I need consolation!

Last year's Regional Host for Canada was from Prince George; that's pretty central; are you anywhere close?

Boffer & I are chomping at the bit to know more about your location (north? south? east or west side?) in British Columbia and what the temps you have there and for growing your Peppers!!! I am trying to figure out what your climate has to do with your success with growing Peppers. And to compare that with our climate in the Seattle to Portland area.

Can you please help us out here?

---Dave

GWN, those are pretty, and the plants are so small, what did you say the variety was?

camprn wrote:GWN, those are pretty, and the plants are so small, what did you say the variety was?

One time she mentioned a "carnival blend". She also says she learned to prune to keep them bushy.

=indigo]]@GWN[/size] Which book did you read?

[quote="Lavender Debs"]

camprn wrote:GWN, those are pretty, and the plants are so small, what did you say the variety was?

One time she mentioned a "carnival blend". She also says she learned to prune to keep them bushy.

Which book did you read?

I would be interested to know how the pepper plants were pruned to keep them busy and not sacrifice the harvest. It sounds like it would definitely work, so I want to make sure if I do it, I don't butcher them.

I know these comments were made in the Winter but I wanted to add something. I have never grown bell peppers and I was trying to find out how to tell when bell peppers are ripe. I found a website that said you can use them at any size when they are green. If you eat the smaller ones raw they are more bitter. I was going to cook them anyway so maybe that will help. They also said that if you leave the peppers on the plant too long, they will stop flowering and of course stop producing peppers. If you want them to ripen to where they change from green to other colors, you can leave them on the plant but then that may prevent the plant from putting out more flowers and reduce your yield. If a pepper looks a muddy color or is changing colors like red or yellow, you can pick it, set it on the counter, and let it finish the color change. If it is still green and you pick it, it will not change colors on the counter and will just go bad while you wait for the color change.

So I'm thinking an option would be that we should pick some to get the plant in the mode of producing.

Gwn did an amazing job with all those beautiful peppers and she pruned her plants! I am definitely going to do what she did to extend the harvest by putting the bush and peppers in a "vase" when the weather cools down!

i'm growing my bell peppers ( capsicums) in two gallon tubs in the glasshouse .
The slugs snaffled one till there was just a stump left but I carried on with the watering and liquid feed that the others get the survivor also get it , it has sprung up with new leaves and will soon catch up with the other that have just flowered .

I'm snipping off branches of leaves similar to tomato plant pruning and leaving those flower bearing branches with leaves alone. They seem to have gone into overdrive.

Just found this site sounds interesting indeed http://www.hortnet.co.nz/publications/hortfacts/hf359001.htm

Thank you Plantoid. Sounds like you are having great success with your peppers, woo hoo! I would have thought that any plant that got chewed that much wouldn't make it but you must be doing something right! I had that happen to two tomato plants and left them in the ground in hopes they would grow. Like your pepper plant one of them has started producing more leaves! The other bit the dust!

I went out after my post to cut off some peppers and they are so teeny, the largest barely bigger than golf ball size, lol. I cut them anyway because I want to make fajitas for dinner. I probably should choose something else but this is what I have a craving for. The plants are still small and I want them to grow bigger and I had read that you should pick off the first batch of blossoms (oops I missed that opportunity). So what I did was pick off all the little barely beginning nubs in hopes it will encourage the plants to get bigger. Do you think it's possible for the plants to grow bigger by me doing this or did I miss the opportunity with the first blossoms? I should have asked for advice first!

Tricia, read through the link I gave , I speed read it and didn't pick up any of what you are suggesting

As long as the bush is blooming, you have a chance at more peppers. I usually "prune" my pepper plants at the time of transplant. I just pinch out the center set of leaves and let the plant grow. It seems to make a bushier plant.
This plant was transplanted in late May 2011 and the picture taken 10/17/2011.


and this one was just a stem on May 24 from a poorly draining pot and hot, dry winds that blew its 8 leaves off. It was pinched when moving to the bucket.


Kay

I don't have a basement or a greenhouse But I do have an old claw foot tub that I can't use and it is so stained most wouldn't want to anyways First time I grew peppers (Wonder Bell sounds right) and Jalapenos just a couple plants each on my small porch along side my Sassy Pinks they did great and first frost I moved them into that tub. No window no sunlight I tinkered with them and seemed to go into a hibernation possibly and 1 each along side my Sassy Pinks survived the winter there [with a lot of neglect ] When it warmed up I took them back outside Of course we got a cold blast in just a few days later. I pulled them in the next day but they didn't look like they would make it.. I moved stuff around and put them in east windows 1 of them actually started showing signs of life with little green buds coming out of the dead looking stems and again I made the mistake of taking them outside when it seemed we were going to stay warm DUH! This time I even lost my Sassy Pinks .
Well better luck this time I have already gotten 2 Bells growing an a few Jalapenos I have at least 3 types of each this year. Oh and my Banana pepper have 5 or 6 peppers on them which I picked one [maybe to soon] to taste test and I didn't like it. I mixed it in with my aphid wash another story I will bend your ears with later.

My last years peppers where huge and I got TONS of them, this year I have learned to LEARN about what I plant.
I am growing two types. California wonder, that ripens to red and another LONG red pepper that starts out yellow and turns red as it ripens. (can't find the book right now
I think last year I assumed that the colour some of them were was the colour that it was intended to be.
My plants have just kicked into gear and are producing tons again. they are all yellow except the ones that are green.....
But they are all going to turn red and that is the main thing