Ariel, see if you can find some Jimmy Nardello peppers for sale (seed is easily available, but check someplace that sells heirlooms). They are a long skinny sweet pepper and very flavorful, and take fewer days to maturity than bell type peppers. In places that struggle to grow bells, I have had pretty good luck with JN. Since your hot peppers are doing well, maybe the sun in your bed is limited early and later in the season by e.g. trees that cut it off before it gets a full day's sun. That condition can increase the number of days to harvest on crops.

Make sure you have lots of sun, and try keeping your soil warm using black plastic on the bed. Get the plants well established before you let it flower (pinch off premature flowers - let the plant's energy go into the plant at first.

Sweet bell peppers take much longer in my experience to develop and ripen than hot peppers. Look for varieties recommended for shorter growing seasons - that will help a bit. There are also some sweet pepper varieties that will mature and ripen before the big bells. The Italian bulls-horn type peppers are an example of this - the Jimmy Nardello recommended above is this type of pepper. There are some newer varieties of shorter bulls-horn peppers that I've grown for a couple of years which I really like - cornito giallo (ripens yellow) and cornito rosso (ripens red). Most of the big seed suppliers will have them.

Concur: Bells are the most difficult members of family. Many of the newer varieties like Socrates, King Arthur do much better than the old varieties. Sweet non bells as a class are much easier to grow. Bull horns, marconis, frying peppers like Melrose, bananas. etc. Carmen and Lipstick are two quite popular bullhorn types.

I am in the NY metro area and Ace (Bell) and Goddess (banana, not a bell) from Johnny's perform excellent for me. But waiting for ripe bells is always an exercise in patience. At the end of the season though, they can churn them out.

I'm in southern California and have noticed the same thing. The hot peppers produce very well, but the bell peppers, not so much - even California Wonder. These must grow well somewhere else.

I'll usually get a early flush of ripe bells in July and then they slow down to a trickle until I get a big flush of ripe ones in September. I grow a mix of bells and bulls horn types to even out the production.

A vendor told me they have Hungarian frying peppers. I tried looking them up and only see Hungarian wax peppers that are hot. Does anyone have experience with them and know if they are good for salads and snacking like a bell pepper?

What most of us know as the Sweet Banana is sometimes sold as Sweet Hungarian Wax. Both Victory and Southern Exposure do this. There is also a Sweet Paprika and a Hungarian Cheese More rare is a Sweet bull horn type and a white bell sometimes prefaced with "Hungarian"

http://www.reimerseeds.com/Departments/Vegetables/Peppers-Sweet/Hungarian-Sweet-Peppers.aspx

Basically the labeling of Hungarian frying peppers is so broad i would not know what I am growing if i buy from the vendor.

Same here, bell peppers are low producers so I switched to sweet banana types which are much more productive to the point of giving most of them away. I find the sweet banana types are milder in flavor than bells which is also a plus for my tastes.

My experience with bells echos the previous posters. They are finicky, produce late (if you want ripe peppers), and seem very prone to rot & sun scald. There is an early brown variety, which goes by several names, including "Sweet Chocolate" and "Professor Meader's"; while not as thick walled as the larger bells, it produces heavily & reliably, even in cooler weather.

I second the recommendations for Melrose and Lipstick, as alternatives. Melrose in particular has a short DTM & a very high yield.

Personally, I have shifted almost entirely to pimento & paprika peppers, in lieu of bells. They are as thick walled as bells, and less temperamental. Tennessee Cheese, Greygo, Parker Heirloom, and Sheepnose are good tomato-shaped pimento types. Alma Paprika and Djuric are "white" tomato-shaped peppers, both are high yielding. Greygo is my favorite; large enough to stuff, and sweet as an apple when ripe.

Elephants Ear and Amfora are large, conical peppers as heavy as bells, and good as green peppers.

Many of the "Hungarian" peppers are cream or yellow when immature, as opposed to green. They are almost uniformly heavy bearing, often incredibly so - but fairly late to ripen. They are seldom offered commercially. Most are conical or elongated bells, with thick walls. I've grown Bacskia, Pasinsky's Giant, Pusztagold, Suptol, and Taltos; Taltos was the largest.

There are also a few hot peppers of the "white" type that are worth mentioning, such as Bea and Pelso. Fairly mild, thick walls, and highly productive.

I stopped by the farmers market and this is what I saw that was not bell or hot peppers. Would any of these fair better than Bell peppers / worth growing?

1. Redskins

2. Gypsy

3. Big Bertha

4. Biscayne

5. Giant Marconi

(these are from an expensive vendor)

6. Padron sweet pepper

7. Giallo di Cuneo

8. Trinidad Perfume Pepper

Gypsy is a bell-type pepper that is cream/yellow when immature. I haven't grown it, but as I mentioned above, all of the peppers I've grown with that trait were highly productive.

Big Bertha is a large, elongated bell pepper, red when ripe. I've grown it several times (will again this year) and it was less prone to trouble than other bells such as Orange and Chocolate. Pretty productive, especially given the very large size of the peppers.

Padron is a long, narrow, thin-walled "frying pepper".

Trinidad Perfume is a different species, basically a heatless habanero. The walls are very thin, production is low, and it would not be a good substitute for bells. Small, shiny, bright orange peppers, and a good pot plant - but IMO, not very useful.

Concur with zeedman. Of those on your list Giant Marconi is big, fast and productive. If you split it lengthwise it is good for stuffing. Biscayne is a Cubanelle a two lobed 7 x 3 inch light green to red fruit. Easier to grow and quicker than a bell, but not as good flavor as Marconi on my taste buds.

Giant Marconi

Cubanelle

Padron is not really a sweet pepper. Every now and then one is hot.

https://www.rareseeds.com/pimiento-de-padron-pepper/

1. Redskins- I havent tried it

2. Gypsy- I've grown this one several times and find it productive in my climate. I don't think of it like a bell. More like a "Hungarian sweet" or European style frying pepper to me, but smaller.

Gypsy peppers-SF Gate

3. Big Bertha- I havent tried it

4. Biscayne- I've grown this one several times and find it productive in my climate. Perfect cubanelle for me, and I most!y grow cubanelles for my sweet peppers. Way better than bells for me.

Cubanelle pepper varieties-SF Gate

5. Giant Marconi-I've grown this one several times and grows well, and ripens to red in my climate, but not as productive for me as cubanelles. But I still grow it.

6. Padron sweet pepper- grown it once or twice. Don't have much use for it

7. Giallo di Cuneo- haven't tried it

8. Trinidad Perfume Pepper- grow this one and similar every year. Always bears way more than I need, but I love growing them. A "seasoning" pepper in Carribean cooking. Might need a long growing season.

I was not familiar with Redskin so I looked it up. a dwarf red bell designed for container gardening. https://www.swallowtailgardenseeds.com/vegetables/bell-peppers/redskin-patio-bell-pepper-seeds.html

Thank you for the feedback!

I went back and picked up 1 Trinidad Perfume Pepper. It looked nice and I thought it would be something worth giving a try. They look like habs and i am guessing they should grow well in a place habs do well. Correct me if i am wrong

Yes, treat Trinidad Perfume like you would a habanero... which is basically what it is, but without the heat. It will take a little shade.

Here are some of my chinenses from 2017. Didn't really need to grow any in 2018, but I did.

Nanelle - Which was your favorite?

I don't know if I could pick one; I use them different ways. There's one I named for my mother in-law, since she grew the peppers my original seed came from. I love the aroma of that one, but it's pretty hot, so I have to be careful how I use it. Trini seasoning has similar aroma, but no heat, so I sometimes have to add something hot to it. The rocottillo I grew was hot, but not too hot, so the right amount of heat for most things, but not the aroma. I try to use Aji Dulce for sofrito, which also includes cubanelles!

Puerto Rican Sofrito- Serious Eats

Have you tried mulching them (with such as a wood mulch or bark mulch)? Peppers generally seem to like mulch (especially if they're in the ground). How much soil do they have? (I ask because some people put a layer of plastic under their raised beds to keep weed roots out.) Your bell peppers might need more room for their roots. What variety of bell pepper are your growing? Some are easier than others. How big were the plants at transplant time? Bigger plants (so long as they're healthy and vigorous) seem to have an advantage. If you grew from seed, you might not have started them soon enough.

We've had more success with store-bought bell pepper plants (transplanted in the ground) than seed-grown ones, so far (whether in-ground or in containers, and the store-bought plants got sizeable fruits fast; they were probably California Wonder), and I think that's mainly because of their maturity. If I heated my 6'x5'x3' greenhouse, I might be able to start them sooner, but, yeah, I only have so much time without heating it (early in the season) before I need to transplant them. Anyway, the bell peppers I've liked the most from seed have probably been Big Bertha F1, White Cloud, and Keystone Resistant Giant (the latter didn't get a fair trial, but I liked how it was doing in a tiny container, transplanted late). White Cloud does not have large fruits, but it is a bell type.

To date, I've grown most of my peppers (all from seed) in containers, without mulch (most kinds with good results, but some don't seem to thrive in containers). I've tried a few seed-grown ones in the ground without mulch in recent years, but they didn't do well (same for all kinds of unmulched seed-grown peppers in the ground, though). We did a few sweet peppers in the ground with mulch last year, and they thrived. We've done some in raised beds in the past (without mulch), with okay results, and before that, we usually just had them in the ground without mulch (with store-bought plants) with excellent results. We're doing a whole row of peppers (many kinds, hot and sweet) in the ground with mulch, this year, and they seem happy so far (happier than the container peppers). We're also growing peppers in containers (with mulch) this year. The only bell I'm growing this year is Keystone Giant (in the ground, with mulch, from seed); feel free to ask for an update later.

I agree that Lipstick is a good alternative to bell peppers; I've grown it two or three times (in containers). You might also like Neapolitan (it can be prolific and early). Chervena Chushka is another good alternative (but it likes a good amount of soil, although it does well in big containers). Georgescu Chocolate isn't bad (small fruits, though). I know it's not even close to a bell pepper in shape, but for a good sweet pepper, you might also try Jimmy Nardello Italian (it's sugary sweet).

I haven't tried Cubanelle, yet, but it sounds pretty great.

Marconi peppers and Corno Di Toro Giallo seemed at least as difficult to grow as bell peppers for me, though (in large containers, without mulch).

I bought them from a vendor at the same sizes you would find at HD or Lowes. They were in ground with around 2 feet in between it and the next plant. It barely reached 2 feet tall. I used dried grass as mulch.

I couldn't find the varieties people suggested being sold. I didn't want to try from seed. I bought 3 or 4 Trinidad Perfume that I am hoping will give me a nice yield. So far it looks like it is growing slowly. Im hoping its developing a good root system and then will have a quick growth spurt.

I'm definitely curious about Trinidad Perfume, so will be interested to hear how it goes first time out with it, Ariel! couldn't find it around here so next year I may try from seed. (I don't have a good warm place to put seed trays, so I soak the pepper and tomato seeds and then put in a slightly damp - not wet - coffee filter in a plastic bag and put a towel around them, then pop them on the heating pad for awhile. When they barely start to sprout, I plant them. )

I stopped growing sweet peppers. Only grow serranos now.