How to Grow Bell Peppers: Pepper Growing Guide, Tips and Tricks

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Bell peppers are one of the most popular vegetables to grow. Unlike their small, spicy relatives, bell peppers lack the high amount of capsaicin that makes chilli peppers eye-wateringly hot.

Whether you’re new to gardening or an experienced gardener, we’ll help you learn how to grow peppers with our expert bell pepper growing guide. And get our top tips and tricks for getting a bountiful harvest every year.

The Pepper Growing Hub: You’ve arrived at our central pepper growing hub, where we cover everything you need to know about growing pepper plants, from how and where to plant peppers, what kind of soil they like best, and how long it takes them to reach maturity.

We’ll also cover some of the most common mistakes people make while growing peppers that can dramatically reduce your harvest size, common pests and diseases, and our top expert tips for getting the best, healthiest peppers organically.

Let’s just dive right in!

Should I Plant Pepper Seeds or Buy Seedlings?

So the first thing you have to decide when thinking about growing peppers is if you’re going to start your pepper plants from seeds or if you want to get ahead of the game and buy seedlings. Now, I personally choose to grow from seed, because it’s cheaper (you get a LOT of seeds in a single packet), you know what you’re growing your seeds in – the type of compost and whether it contains any chemicals, and I like to rely on myself and my own skills, not somebody else’s.

Buying starts, or seedlings, you’ll spend more and get fewer plants, but they’ll already be through the delicate germination stage. Pepper starts are also a good buying option if you’ve missed the seed planting window or you’ve had a disaster and lost your own seedlings.

Types of Peppers to Grow

Before we get too far into the how to grow bell peppers info, you need to decide which pepper varieties to grow. Now, there are, quite literally, hundreds of bell pepper varieties to choose from, and we’ve covered, in detail, our very favorite varieties in this post. So here, we’re just going to cover the basics of choosing the right pepper variety for your location and a few of our top picks.

Best Small (Snack) Bell Pepper: Pepper Cherry

Pepper cherry produces ridiculously cute 1 to 2-inch bright red fruits. Seriously, stick a pair of googly eyes on one of these little peppers, and you’ve got the cutest vegetable monster ever! Sweet flesh, thick walls, and hardly any seeds make pepper cherries the best snacking peppers.

The plants are pretty compact, reaching 20 inches tall, and produce a high number of peppers. You’ll harvest ripe fruits in around 75 days.

Best Hybrid Bell Pepper: Bell Boy

Now, I don’t normally like hybrids, because you can’t save seeds from them. But, if you have significant problems with your bell peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes getting diseased, then Bell Boy is the best pepper for you.

It grows well in most climates, apart from in cold areas, and matures in 70 days, so it requires a comparatively short growing season. And, it’s resistant to most common pepper diseases.

It’s also a good choice if you’re short on space, as it has sturdy but compact growth and a high fruit yield to plant size ratio.

Best Large Bell Pepper: Ozark Giant

Ozark giant peppers are huge. These giant bell peppers can grow to about 8 inches long and have substantial girth. The walls of the peppers are thick and juicy and the flesh is tender with a sweet flavor.

Note that these pepper plants are not a good choice for small spaces, as they can reach 12 inches in diameter and up to 30 inches high. This old pepper variety is very productive, and the peppers are super versatile. Plus, because the fruits are so big, they make fantastic stuffed peppers!

Our other top heirloom pepper varieties include:

• Chocolate
• California Wonder
• Purple Beauty
• Yellow Bell
• Red Marconi

The Best Conditions for Pepper Plants to Thrive

Peppers need free-draining soil with plenty of nutrients. In fact, they’re surprisingly heavy feeders, so even if you practice good soil management and rotate your crops, you’ll still need to add the right type of fertilizer throughout the growing season.

And they need warmth. Pepper plants won’t do well in shade. They need at least 8 hours of sunshine every day and the soil temperature needs to be 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit (23-29C) for the best results.

For the best pepper harvest and the healthiest plants, space your peppers 18 to 24 inches apart, as they grow as bush or bush-type plants.

Remember too, that most bell peppers grow multiple trusses, so make sure you leave enough space between rows to accommodate these indeterminate growth habits. And you’ll also need to stake most pepper plants, too.

How to Plant Pepper Seeds

Get yourself a nice, high-quality seed starting mix. You want something that’s lightweight and retains plenty of moisture. I like peat-free coco coir-based seed starting mixes for peppers because I see good germination rates and less likelihood or damping off or other issues that target seedlings.

You can find out more about the different options for seed starting mixes in this post.

Once you’ve decided on your seed starting mix, fill your seed trays to about 3/4 full with the planting mix. Then very thinly sow the pepper seeds. Ideally, space the seeds about 1 inch apart and cover with a fairly thin layer of seed starting mix.

At this point, if you didn’t wear gloves, wash your hands before you touch your eyes or face, particularly if you just sowed a hot pepper variety.

Water the seeds gently with a fine mist or spray.

Place the trays on a heat mat, in a heated propagator, a heated greenhouse (if planted early), or on a sunny windowsill. The ideal temperature for pepper seedlings is around 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 21 degrees Celsius.

If you don’t have any of these available or any other means of keeping the seeds consistently warm, then you can make your own propagator. Take some clear plastic bags – like sandwich bags or ziplocks – and place them over your pots. Secure them with an elastic band. You can also do this with saran wrap in a pinch. Once the seedlings emerge, remove the covers and place the seedlings somewhere warm and sunny.

When to Plant Pepper Seeds

The best time to plant pepper seeds depends on the variety of pepper you are planting and your location.

For most bell peppers, plant them indoors and keep them consistently warm, about 8 weeks before the last frost in your area.

Bell peppers need a long growing season, so by planting them indoors so early, you give your plants the best chance at producing a high yield of large, healthy peppers.

How to Care for Pepper Seedlings

Once seedlings emerge, keep them moist but not drenched, and keep them warm. They are even more susceptible to the cold than mature pepper plants.

If you have grow lights, you can encourage vigorous, healthy growth by simulating longer days and providing more “sunlight” than the short days of late winter and early spring can provide.

Once the pepper seedlings are big enough to handle, transplant them into roomy, individual pots of rich compost to grow on until they’re ready to plant out. This should be around 2 to 3 weeks after germination once the plant has 2 to 3 sets of true leaves. If their roots fill the pots before it’s time to plant them out, you’ll need to repot them to avoid damaging their roots.

Read more about transplanting pepper seedlings here.

Pepper seedlings are very delicate, so handle them with care.  They are also susceptible to pests like aphids and spider mites, particularly when they’re young plants, so always check your plants regularly.

Damping Off

One thing to be extra mindful of is damping off. This fungal disease attacks and overwhelms seedlings rapidly, and bell peppers, like many other plants, are very susceptible.

There’re no cure for damping off, but there are a few things you can do to reduce the chances of it occurring to begin with.

• Use fresh compost
• Wash trays and pots before you plant
• Add perlite to compost to improve drainage
• Water seeds and seedlings from the bottom not the top
• Use cellular trays or individual pots
• Provide ventilation
• Avoid overcrowding

Harden Off Pepper Seedlings

Pepper plant seedlings can be planted outdoors in mid spring. Depending on your location, that’s likely late May to mid-June.

But, for your sweet peppers to thrive, you’ll need to harden them off. If you just move them straight from the greenhouse to their final position, you’ll shock them and they’ll be stunted, die off completely, or struggle to perform. So hardening off is essential.

To do this, start by moving them from their current location to their final position gradually. Start about 2 weeks before you plan to plant them outdoors. This will help them get used to the new environment and prevent them from being shocked.

If you’ve had them in a heated space or on a heat mat up to this point, you can start by moving them into an unheated greenhouse or cold frame. Leave them for a few hours in the cooler spot before moving them back to their cosy heated space. Increase the time over about a week until you leave them in the unheated space full time.

Once your plants are happy in the unheated space and have been there for about a week, it’s time to fully harden them off ready for planting in their final position.

Just like you did during the first phase, move them from their current position, but this time to outside and unprotected, for a few hours at a time during the warmest part of the day. Increase their time outside over about a week to 10 days, eventually ending up with them outside permanently.

It’s at this point that you can plant them in their final position.

RELATED ARTICLE: What Temperature is Too Cold for Peppers?

How to Transplant Pepper Seedlings

Firstly, you need to decide if you’re going to grow peppers in containers or in the ground. The choice is yours. We have plenty of space and like to maximize our harvest, so we grow our bell pepper plants in the ground. We find that growing peppers in containers limits their growth and potential fruit yield. Plus, growing peppers in containers requires more maintenance if you want healthy plants and good harvests.

However, if you have limited space or unfavorable soil conditions, then growing peppers in containers is a viable option. But you may want to choose a smaller bush or dwarf variety if you go this route.

If you plan to plant in the open ground, it’s also super-important to practice crop rotation as part of good soil management. Crop rotation helps to maximize crop yield, limit the spread of disease and insect infestations, and is a crucial part of maintaining healthy soil and a diverse local ecosystem.

You should be ready to plant peppers outside roughly 8 to 10 weeks after you plant the seeds, when all danger of frost has passed.

After you harden them off, plant into large containers (if you’re growing peppers in pots) or outside in the earth. For planting outside, dig a hole at least one and a half times wider than the pepper pot to allow the roots room to spread. In the bottom of the hole, add some moistened compost, manure, or other organic matter and mix it a little with the loose soil in the bottom of the hole. This gives your pepper something to feed on to give it a good head start.

For the best fruit production and healthiest plants, locate your peppers in full sun and make sure the site is sheltered if you experience lots of high winds, like at the base of a wall.

Lightly compress the soil around the base of the plants and gently water them in.

Watering Peppers

Peppers are very sensitive to soil moisture and over-watering is the fastest way to kill your plants (find out how to fix overwatered peppers). As a general rule, only water your peppers once per week. However, if your climate is very hot or you experience a heatwave, you’ll need to increase the frequency.

Stick to a watering schedule but use your common sense and make changes when needed.

If it’s watering day, but the soil in the top inch is still pretty moist, skip the watering and check again tomorrow. If it’s not the scheduled day to water but you notice your peppers are wilting, check to see how dry the soil is and add water as necessary.

Note that peppers growing in containers need more watering than those grown in the open ground.

Fertilizing Peppers

There are three key stages to fertilizing peppers:

1. Seedling Stage

Seedlings and young plants need a good dose of nitrogen to help them grow strong and resist disease: use a high-nitrogen or organic tomato fertilizer for this stage. Nitrogen encourages strong, rapid root development and foliage growth.

2. Growth Stage

Plants in the mid-season need an all-purpose, balanced plant food such as blood, fish, and bone meal. This gives peppers everything they need to produce fruit and promote lush foliage growth. At this stage, the peppers still need plenty of nitrogen to reach maturity and have good leafy growth, but they do best with more of a balance of potassium and phosphate, too.

3. Fruiting Stage

When you see flowers forming on your pepper plants, apply a high potassium feed like sulphate of potash or wood ash to encourage fruit production. Switch to a low-nitrogen fertilizer, otherwise you’ll end up with a beautifully leafy pepper plant with hardly any peppers on it. The key is to encourage the plant to put its efforts into growing loads of fruits rather than putting out more leaves.

Of course, we always use organic fertilizers for our peppers and everything else we grow. You can read more about fertilizing peppers here, and find out what organic fertilizers you can make at home, here.

Staking Peppers

Whether you’re growing peppers in the vegetable garden or in a roomy container on your deck, it’s a good idea to stake them. Pepper staking serves a few different purposes:

• Supports the plants to keep them upright
• Lets sunlight reach more of the fruits to help green peppers mature into sweet red peppers (or orange, yellow, brown, or purple)
• Reduces the risk of soil-borne diseases reaching the fruits
• Improves airflow to reduce the risk of fungal diseases
• Keeps fruits off the ground to prevent rot
• Reduces sunscald.

We like to drive a stake into the ground close to the main stem when we transplant seedlings outdoors so that we minimize root damage.

As the plants grow and begin to put off extra branches, we add extra stakes as needed.

And, we gently tie the stems to the stakes with natural just twine. Remember to be gentle, though. Don’t tie the twine too tight – leave the plant room to move and grow, and try not to draw the twine against the stem, as you’ll cause abrasions and wounds that can damage the plant and encourage pests to attack or diseases to set in.

Mulching Peppers

Mulching peppers helps improve the health and yield of your plants in a number of ways:

• Helps soil retain moisture
• Maintains soil temperature
• Reduces the risk of splashing infected soil onto pepper leaves
• Keeps weeds to a minimum
• Protects the root system

There’s lots of choices for mulching peppers. We like straw, grass clippings, or well-rotted manure. Manure may be our favorite, actually, as it acts as a nutrient-rich top-dressing as well as a high-quality mulch.

Simply add a thick layer of your chosen mulch around the base of each plant. You can always add a second or third layer later in the season if your first layer starts to break down.

Bottom Prune Your Peppers

If you’ve previously had problems with soil-borne diseases and fungi, or you hear of reports of this in your local area, the best way to combat it or reduce the risk of your plants getting infected is to mulch well and to bottom-prune your plants.

For the best results, as your peppers grow, but before the first fruits set, we like to remove all the leaves from the bottom 6 inches of our own plants. If soil-borne diseases are particularly problematic in your area but you’re determined to still grow your peppers in the open ground, you can get away with bottom-pruning up to 8 inches.

And remember, peppers are part of the nightshade family, so if you’ve had problems with tomatoes, potatoes, or other nightshade family members, don’t plant peppers in the same soil. And practice good crop rotation, so don’t follow one nightshade with another the next year.

Read our article on pruning pepper plants here.

Pinch Out the Growing Tips

Once your pepper plants reach about 8 inches tall, it’s a good idea to top them. This involves cutting away the top-most growing tip. While this seems counter-intuitive, you’re actually encouraging your pepper plants to produce more trusses/branches and therefore produce peppers in larger quantities.

By pinching out or topping the bell pepper plants, you’ll create a larger, healthier, more resilient plant. Growing peppers is easier if you create a stockier, wider, fuller plant rather than a long, tall, scraggly one.

Pinch Off the First Flowers

Many people fall at this hurdle with their pepper plants. Because they’re right – it seems counter-intuitive to pinch off flowers that will produce fruit. It’s like throwing away food. BUT pinching off the first flowers encourages your bell peppers to produce more foliage, more trusses, and stronger roots early on in the season, which leads to much bigger, healthier plants, and therefore many, many more bell peppers throughout the year.

So go ahead and cut off those early pepper plant flowers. While your plant is still young, you really don’t want it to put energy into flowering and fruiting. You want it to save its energy for growing big and strong, and then diverting energy into fruiting.

Get some sharp scissors or pruning shears or use a sharp knife and gently remove those first pretty white flowers. As a general rule, we remove the first flowers that appear two to three weeks after we’ve planted them out in their final location. After those first few weeks, we let the flowers set and produce lovely, lovely fruits.

Note though, that we start out peppers early, indoors, with plenty of heat and grow lights to get them growing strong and fast. So, even though we don’t have the longest natural growing season, we can afford to spend a few weeks nipping off flowers.

If your growing season is shorter or you start your plants in an unheated greenhouse, I’d only recommend nipping off early flowers that appear for a week after you’ve situated the pepper plants in their final spot.

Common Pepper Pests

Whenever you try to grow your own food, you’re also growing things other species love to chow down on. And it’s no different when you start growing peppers – many, many insects find pepper leaves, stems, and fruits delicious.

It’s a constant battle against critters, but to give your peppers the best chance against invaders, keep them healthy. Insects tend to be more attracted to sickly plants than healthy ones.

Here are the most common garden pests that attack peppers:

• Slugs and snails – adore pepper plants of all ages, but are particularly problematic for young plants
• Cutworms – Cause the most damage to seedlings, cutting them off at the stem and killing them
• Flea beatles – You’ll see holes all over your pepper leaves, particularly dangerous to young plants
• Aphids – Stunt pepper plant growth, reduce fruit yield, honeydew causes mold, attracts other insects
• Armyworms – Make their appearance after the fruit has set, devouring young pepper pods and drastically reducing your harvestable yield
• Corn borers – Work their way inside young pepper pods and kill them
• Hornworms – Big, ugly devourers of pepper plants. Can quickly decimate a whole plant
• Whiteflies – Causes yellow leaves, dropping leaves, stunted growth, and foliage shrivel. Also carry diseases between plants and species

Common Pepper Diseases

Pepper plants are susceptible to an array of diseases, the most common of which are fungal. A disease is one of the most common causes of pepper leaves turning yellow or black spots on peppers. Other symptoms of disease include shrivelling leaves, brown spots, falling leaves, and stunted growth.

Common pepper diseases include:

• Bacterial leaf spot: Causes yellowing leaves, brown spots and leaf drop
• Cucumber mosaic virus: Viral infection that stunts leaves and fruit production
• Southern blight: Fungal disease that causes stem rot
• Powdery mildew: Warm, humid fungal disease that causes yellow-gray spots most commonly on the underside of leaves. Quickly spreads and destroys foliage
• Verticillium wilt: Yellow curling leaves that start on one side of the plant. Bacterial disease that stops nutrients travelling through the plant

Common Pepper Problems

There are many other problems that you pepper plant can face. Here are a few of the most common:

• Blossom end rot: Caused by inconsistent watering and lack of calcium availability or uptake. Fruits rot at the point where the flower was joined.
• Over-watering: The number one cause of problems with pepper plants. Peppers like to be a little on the dry side but they also need a consistent watering schedule.
• Nitrogen deficiency: Causes yellowing leaves that start at the bottom of the plant and slowly progresses upwards. Can be fatal. Also inhibits fruit production

Companion Plants for Peppers

Companion planting vegetables, herbs, and flowers is a great way of boosting soil health and plant health and encouraging a diverse ecosystem in your growing space. It’s one of my favorite elements of organic gardening and the success we have with it never ceases to amaze me, year after year.

Companion planting peppers, when done correctly, helps each plant thrive, stay healthy, and ward off pests. When it comes to bell peppers, my favorite companion plants are:

• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Radishes
• Squashes
• Rosemary
• Onions
• Leeks
• Garlic
• Basil
• Sage
• Yarrow

How to Harvest Peppers

After 65 to 85 days, you’ll be able to start harvesting peppers! It’s ridiculously rewarding to harvest your own peppers after a full season of caring for them, mothering them, and generally catering to their every need!

If you want to eat raw peppers as a snack, a replacement for tortillas, in a sandwich, or in a salad, it’s best to wait until you’ve got fully ripened ones. Matured red bell peppers, for example, are crunchy and sweet enough to eat raw. Green bell peppers from the same plant, on the other hand, will be a little bitter and drier so aren’t as good raw. But they’re still fantastic cooked. Some people even prefer to cook with green bell peppers.

Note that if you want to save your own pepper seeds, you’ll need to wait until the bell peppers are fully ripened. You’ll know because the pepper will drastically change color from green to red, yellow, orange, purple, etc, depending on the variety you’re growing.

How to Store and Preserve Peppers

Like tomatoes, peppers don’t keep in their fresh state for too long. But you can preserve them!

Here are a few of my favorite ways to preserve bell peppers:

• Canning bell peppers
• Freezing bell peppers
• Dehydrating bell peppers
• Roasted pepper and tomato pasta sauce

FAQs

Can you grow peppers in containers?

Yes, absolutely! Growing peppers in containers is a great option if you’ve got limited growing space. Just make sure you choose large, roomy containers to get a good yield from your pepper plants.

Can you grow peppers hydroponically?

Yes, you can grow peppers hydroponically. Bell peppers are comparatively easy to grow hydroponically with just a little bit of know-how.

How long do bell peppers take to grow?

Bell peppers usually take between 60 and 90 days to grow from seed to producing mature fruit. The exact time depends on your location and the variety of pepper you choose to grow. Plus, of course, with most varieties, you can harvest the bell peppers and use them for cooking while they’re green, as long as they’re full size.

Do pepper plants need to climb?

No, pepper plants don’t need to climb, but they do need support from a tomato cage or from stakes. This lifts the trusses and fruit off the floor and encourages better growth and healthier, larger fruits.

How can I make bell peppers grow faster?

Make your bell peppers grow faster by starting them off indoors and keeping the temperature at 80 to 90F. You can also use a grow light to extend the daylight hours during those early short days to encourage your seedlings to grow quickly and healthily.

Roomy containers and the right amount of the right fertilizer at the right time will also encourage faster growth. And make sure you pick the peppers as soon as they ripen. This encourages the remaining fruits to ripen faster and tells the plant to produce more new fruits.

How do you get pepper plants to produce more fruit?

Fertilizing at the right times and picking peppers as soon as they ripen encourages the plant to produce more fruits. Additionally, topping young pepper plants to stop upward growth encourages the plant to produce more trusses which will produce more fruit later in the season.

What should you not plant near peppers?

Tomatoes, potatoes, and dill should not be planted near peppers. Tomatoes and potatoes are in the nightshade family, the same as peppers, so if you get a disease or pest that loves peppers, it’ll decimate your potatoes and tomatoes, too.

And dill encourages tomato hornworm, among other pests. Therefore, it can be used as an effective trap crop for nightshades like peppers, but shouldn’t be planted close to them.