Sweet Peppers and Chillis

Peppers are fun to grow. I use them both for cooking and for decoration. They are easy to grow and very rewarding. I find them very useful in cooking also. I use my Capsicums (sweet peppers) both raw in salads and also cooked in all manners of ways and dishes. They are not particularly hot but add a certain piquancy to dishes. For heat you need chilli peppers. Both types are decorative and can be kept in pots in the house as decoration and used as wished.You can also freeze peppers and chillis for use when wanted.

When choosing sweet pepper seed, I generally choose two types. The first is a heavy cropper such as Jumbo Sweet F1 Hybrid or Gourmet ; and the second type is more decorative (although still useful for eating) such as Summer Salad. This variety produces a mixture of colour peppers (only one colour per plant) from Purple through to yellow, red and orange. These look good on the plants as well as in salads and other dishes. They are thick and thin walled so have a variety of uses.These varieties come from Thompson and Morgan Seed Catalogue but the equivalent can be found in any vegetable seed catalogue.

Choosing Chilli pepper seed is very much a matter of personal preference. Chillis come in all manner of heat and depending upon your personal preference you can choose one to fit. They are all easy to grow amd will grow indoors or outside.

When growing Peppers and chillis, I always start them off indoors. I sow them in 3″ pots (2 seeds to a pot). Then when they have germinated, I prick them out into individual 3″ pots, gradually potting them on until they are in 2 litre pots. At this point, all danger of frosts are over and I can plant them outside if I wish. If  you are growing them purely for decoration, then you can stop with the size pot which suits you. The smaller the pot, the less pappers you will get and the smaller those peppers will be.

As with Tomatoes, peppers and chillis want good soil to grow in. Compost to start them off and then grow bags or home made compost is great. They will also need feeding after 6 weeks.

Because chillis and Capsicums look so good on the plant, they can be grown in flower beds in a small garden – or even a large one. Beacause I am growing them mainly to eat, I grow  most of mine in the greenhouse. This means they are not reliant upon the weather and therefore will ripen more readily. I also take some indoors when the weather starts to cool down and let them ripen there whilst still looking good.

Red and Green Capsicums are a very good provider of Vitamin C whilst Red Pappers are rich in Vitamin A also. So besides looking good, and tasting good, they do you good. What more can you ask of any plant!