Do you mean that you want only the least hot of the hot peppers or that you want only sweet peppers?

Most peppers perform wonderfully here, but you do get better production if you time your planting at the precisely right time.

Dawn

I grow "Corno di Torro" every year and get great yields. They are a bull's horn shaped pepper hence the name "Corno di Torro" Horn of the Bull. They are Itilian sweet and packed full of flavor, I eat them fresh in salads and cooked in Itilian food. I get them from Renne's Garden Seeds online.

I can't eat hot pepper anymore, so I only grow Jimmy Nardello sweet frying pepper. It produces all Summer and I have plenty for freezing...had some on fajitas last night....

I am really only interested in the "sweet peppers" not the hot ones. My wife's tongue can not stand spicy foods.

Docjoc,

You've already had two great recommendations that I second--Jimmy Nardello's as recommended by Gary from Duck Creek Farms and Corno di Toro as recommended by Kellygreens.

My dad always grew and enjoyed Sweet Banana Peppers and of the ones I've tried, Banana Supreme has been the best producer. A pepper that doesn't get mentioned very often but which has really great flavor is Marconi and I usually see them available as transplants. Marconi is available as Super Marconi, a 2001 All-American Selections winner that matures from green to red, and there's also a Golden Marconi and a Red Marconi. All the Marconi types take a long time to mature--they are even later than sweet bell types, but they have incredible sweet flavor if allowed to mature from green to their mature shade of red or golden yellow.

Cubanelle is one of the earliest sweet peppers to mature for me, and the Carmen sweet pepper is an Italian bull's horn type that is similar to Corno di Toro but produces smaller fruit and produces a few days to up to a week earlier.

Most bell peppers produce pretty well here, but I particularly like Blushing Beauty and Roumanian Rainbow beause they produce really early and really heavily for me and look gorgeous when loaded down with peppers in all the various stages/colors of ripeness.

One reason that sweet peppers sometimes don't produce as well as we'd like here is that our weather gets too hot too quickly. Peppers set fruit best when the nighttime lows are 60 and higher and the daytime lows are 80 or lower, and here in Oklahoma our temperatures do not stay in that nice moderate range for very long. Excess summer heat can slow down or shut down sweet pepper production pretty fast but the plants will produce heavily in the fall when milder temperatures return. Also, more than most other warm-season peppers, plants that are exposed to cold temperatures (temps in the 40s) in early spring often stall or stunt and do not produce well. I don't take my pepper seedlings outside until the nights are staying above about 50 degrees with some consistency and I take them back inside if cold nights threaten. Tomato plants can go into fairly cool soil, but I don't transplant peppers into the ground until the soil temperatures are staying above 55 degrees day and night.

One of the problems with purchased pepper transplants is that they may be exposed to cold temperatures while at the store and those cold temps can stunt their growth/affect their productivity. So, when you purchase peppers, try to avoid those that arrive at the stores in March when it still is really cold at night unless you can buy them shortly after they arrive and keep them inside at night until the temps warm up. Depending on where you live in OK, there may be some great local growers in your area who give their plants better protection from the cold spring temps that you'll see at local big box stores. If you need recommendations of specific local growers/retailers, let us know....you don't have to specify a city if you don't want to, but you could specify a region like central OK, northeastern OK, etc.

Hot peppers produce better in the heat of summer than sweet peppers, by the way, but that doesn't help you since you're growing the sweet types.

The heaviest producers for me are the mini-bell peppers that produce peppers only slightly larger than a large grape. Last year they produced ripe peppers from June through November and wore me out with the constant need to pick them. I still have a freezer full of them and didn't even start any of them from seed this year.

I hope you have a great pepper crop this year.

Dawn

Docjoc,

You've already had two great recommendations that I second--Jimmy Nardello's as recommended by Gary from Duck Creek Farms and Corno di Toro as recommended by Kellygreens.

My dad always grew and enjoyed Sweet Banana Peppers and of the ones I've tried, Banana Supreme has been the best producer. A pepper that doesn't get mentioned very often but which has really great flavor is Marconi and I usually see them available as transplants. Marconi is available as Super Marconi, a 2001 All-American Selections winner that matures from green to red, and there's also a Golden Marconi and a Red Marconi. All the Marconi types take a long time to mature--they are even later than sweet bell types, but they have incredible sweet flavor if allowed to mature from green to their mature shade of red or golden yellow.

Cubanelle is one of the earliest sweet peppers to mature for me, and the Carmen sweet pepper is an Italian bull's horn type that is similar to Corno di Toro but produces smaller fruit and produces a few days to up to a week earlier.

Most bell peppers produce pretty well here, but I particularly like Blushing Beauty and Roumanian Rainbow beause they produce really early and really heavily for me and look gorgeous when loaded down with peppers in all the various stages/colors of ripeness.

One reason that sweet peppers sometimes don't produce as well as we'd like here is that our weather gets too hot too quickly. Peppers set fruit best when the nighttime lows are 60 and higher and the daytime lows are 80 or lower, and here in Oklahoma our temperatures do not stay in that nice moderate range for very long. Excess summer heat can slow down or shut down sweet pepper production pretty fast but the plants will produce heavily in the fall when milder temperatures return. Also, more than most other warm-season peppers, plants that are exposed to cold temperatures (temps in the 40s) in early spring often stall or stunt and do not produce well. I don't take my pepper seedlings outside until the nights are staying above about 50 degrees with some consistency and I take them back inside if cold nights threaten. Tomato plants can go into fairly cool soil, but I don't transplant peppers into the ground until the soil temperatures are staying above 55 degrees day and night.

One of the problems with purchased pepper transplants is that they may be exposed to cold temperatures while at the store and those cold temps can stunt their growth/affect their productivity. So, when you purchase peppers, try to avoid those that arrive at the stores in March when it still is really cold at night unless you can buy them shortly after they arrive and keep them inside at night until the temps warm up. Depending on where you live in OK, there may be some great local growers in your area who give their plants better protection from the cold spring temps that you'll see at local big box stores. If you need recommendations of specific local growers/retailers, let us know....you don't have to specify a city if you don't want to, but you could specify a region like central OK, northeastern OK, etc.

Hot peppers produce better in the heat of summer than sweet peppers, by the way, but that doesn't help you since you're growing the sweet types.

The heaviest producers for me are the mini-bell peppers that produce peppers only slightly larger than a large grape. Last year they produced ripe peppers from June through November and wore me out with the constant need to pick them. I still have a freezer full of them and didn't even start any of them from seed this year.

I hope you have a great pepper crop this year.

Dawn

Sorry for the double post. It told me it 'rejected' the first one, so I changed the title and submitted it again, and I knew when I did it that they both likely would pop up!

Dawn and all the others... Thanks so much for all the pepper information. I am humbled by your expertise and kindness toward ignorant folks like me.

Docjoc,

You are so very welcome. Stick with us and we'll get you as addicted to growing peppers....and other things....as we are. We all learned what we know by doing....and, speaking for myself, I am hardheaded and have to learn things the hard way. If there's a way to do something wrong in my garden, I've done it....and that's how you learn. You just keep plugging away until you get it right!

For what it is worth, you never stop learning about gardening either. I have been gardening for a while now and feel like I've learned a little bit along the way, but I still learn something new constantly. There's always new methods or techniques to try, or new varieties or cultivars of plants, etc. I consider my garden and landscape to be a big natural science lab where I can experiment with trees, shrubs, vines, flowers, herbs, ground covers, grasses, fruit and veggies endlessly. If something I try doesn't work, I try something else. I hope I never stop trying new things and never stop learning more about gardening.

Happy growing,

Dawn

Dawn,

What is the name of the seed variety for the mini-peppers that you were writing about that are just bigger than a grape and continual harvesting? Thank you in advance! I appreciate your experience.

Kelly

Kelly,

They generally are just sold as mini-bells, with no variety name, although sometimes they're sold as "Mini-Belle" or "Mini Bells" or as "Yellow Mini Bell", "Red Mini Bell" or "Orange Mini Bell".

They are available from several different sources, and I've linked one below. I believe that most years they're also available from Pinetree Garden Seed, Burpee, Park, Seed Savers Exchange and Totally Tomatoes, although I haven't looked to see if they have them this year.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Mini Bells Mix

Dawn, I have mini-bell seed that I bought from both Thompson and Morgan and Baker Creek. I hope I am not disappointed because I was trying to find the ones about one and a half inches across. I have not seen the 'just larger than a grape' size. What do you do with those?

I am on a quest for those slightly elongated bell shaped peppers that they sell at Sam's that are red, yellow and gold all mixed together in a clear plastic container. They are crisp, sweet, and delicious. We ate them like apples. LOL

It is raining hard here and has been for hours and we just passed an inch and a half for today. The four counties in the NE corner of the state are under flash flood watch.

Here are the last seven days for those four counties from Mesonet:

Ottawa 2.54
Craig 2.59
Mayes 2.71
Deleware 3.29

If Noah comes by, I am definately hitching a ride. LOL

Carol,

The mini bells I grew last year were from a package of seed I purchased from Totally Tomatoes in 2003 or so and they varied a lot in size, with some being larger than others, and some being more bell-shaped and some being slightly more rounded than the average bell. If you slice the top off the larger ones, you could just fit a large grape right inside the 'pepper cup'.

I use them any way you could/would use a full-sized bell. They're quick and easy to slice and use in salads or soups, for example, and they're great stuffed, or as sweet pepper poppers for folks who like poppers themselves but not the heat of the jalapenos.

A big advantage the mini bell types have over the larger ones is that the mature to their ripe colors/flavor much more quickly and it seems like there are always some on the plants in shades of red and orange (yellow doesn't seem as prolific) when I'm making Habanero Gold. Usually, by the times the habs are ready to use, the larger sweet bells are 'in-between' orange and green. Since your want bright color in your Habanero Gold, I am happy to always have red or orange mini bells to use in the jelly if my larger bells aren't the right color at that time.

The slightly elongated ones from Sam's are sweet peppers but aren't bell-shaped, and I think they most resemble the sweet peppers sold at Territorial Seed as Yum Yum or at TT as Yummy Mix.

Some people say they've saved seed from the Sam's peppers and grown 'identical' peppers from that seed, but I haven't tried it.

Also, peppers may get larger for you than they do for me because you have a gazillion times more rainfall most years.

We did have a inch of rain yesterday/last night and it frustrates me because my garden soil in my raised beds was just about dry enough to work. The grade-level soil is still WAY too wet for potatoes and I'm starting to think I may have to plant all of them in grow bags because I think in the current wet soil they'd likely rot before they could grow.

Y'all have had a lot more moisture than we have, but our soil remains surprisingly wet. You know how it is with clay...it waterlogs and stays wet forever, and then when it dries up, you can't put enough water on it again to get it to absorb any water.

Based on the weather patterns we're seeing, I'm afraid it is going to be one of those years when planting is very difficult due to excess rainfall. Tim must think so too. He came home from work a couple of days ago with a car trunk full of 5-gallon buckets they were throwing away at the firing range. He NEVER does that and I think it is because my garden junk clutters up our garage so much that he figures I don't need more of anything. When I said "Why?", he just said, "I thought you'd need them". lol Of course, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that we are living in the land of perpetual mud.....

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Yummy at Totally Tomatoes

Dawn, I think you are right about Yummy and Yum-Yum and if I had ordered from either of those places this year, I would have bought those just to see. I have a bag full of seeds that I saved from the Sam's peppers but I only had one of them in my garden last year. It was crisp and nice when green but I didn't let any ripen. The shape didn't seem to be very consistent as I recall. I probably should plant a few of those seeds and put them in containers. I have over planted as it is tho, because I just can't resist trying new things.

I usually order from several different sources but this past year I placed 3 Willhite orders, 2 Thompson and Morgan orders, and went to Baker Creek twice in addition to the seed swap and a generous donation from Jay, the tomato King, so I didn't order from the others.

Carol - I purchased some from TT that were called "Healthy" and "Chablis Hybrid" because they looked like those ones at Sam's that you get in the veggie trays. We love those at my house! I've started some of each. The "Healthy" are just getting their start and I just last week got the "Chalis" started....with the crazy weather I didn't think it would hurt to be a little later setting out peppers. If you'd like I'll save at least one of the "Healthy" for you and you can get it at the Swap! Or I can see if I still have some seeds (I don't think I started ALL of them) and drop you 5 or so! Would you like to try the Chablis also? (see? I'm learning to be an enabler too!!!!)

Paula

Just save me a plant if you don't mind and I will try to bring you something to trade. I planted two trays of peppers, but the last one was just planted this week and the others are still small. Before the Spring Fling, I will send you a list to choose from. With any luck, I should have lots of peppers.

Yolo Wonder and Purple Beauty have both done very well for me in the past. I plant my peppers in between rows of okra to keep them somewhat shaded. My Purple Beauties produce until frost and are absolutely delicious (and so pretty!) Highly recommend either variety!

dawnrenee - I planted both of those this year. They are still tiny but looking good. Of course, I planted SEVERAL others as well. LOL

Will do Carol! I think I have almost a dozen coming up, so saving one or two for you won't be any big deal. Don't worry about a trade. Consider it a "thank you" gift for all you did on the Fall Swap. Honestly, I'm not going to have room for everything I've either started or have seeds for anyway. But isn't that always the way it goes? I've got at least 10 starts each of 12 different tomatoe varieties and 11 different peppers. I've got over 2 acrs here....but the grass areas are shrinking.

Paula

Ah-ha. Sounds as if the 80 tomato plants had a small growing spell. Did that naughty Jay or Dawn encourage you again? If I had 2 acres, I would probably fill it quickly with tomato plants, peppers, and melons.

My son and DIL just bought a 100 acre farm and it has about 20 acres that have been in wheat in the past. I told him it looked like I could start lots of tomatoes next year. LOL It is 2 hours away from me and has a serious deer herd that visits his yard every night, so he has several things to solve before he can plant anything. I almost enjoy growing the seedlings more than the growing in the garden, except that it is too cold to do them outside when it is time to start the seeds, and I do love to be outside.