Peppers

Available in May in 9cm pots these heat loving vegetables should be planted in the warmest location in your garden.  The varieties selected by us are the earliest to mature in our cool climate. Harvest usually occurs late August onwards.  Peppers are not heavy feeders so fertile soils are adequate in the garden and in containers a mild fertilizer weekly is all that is recommended.  Peppers are also not heavy water users and can tolerate some drying out between watering. 

 Peppers are broken down into two main forms...

Hot

The hot peppers have smaller fruit usually starting off green going red or orange when ripe.  Unripe fruit are often mild flavoured compared to the spicy or hot ripe version.  Keep the hotter varieties away from children as the ripe fruit can burn their mouth and eyes.  The degree of heat in the fruit is also dependant on the heat of the weather. The warmer the more ripe and spicy hot the fruit becomes.  Heat is often measured in the scoville rating system where sweet peppers are rated at 0 , Jalapeno 6000 and the hottest pepper we offer Habanero at 577,000.  Most of the varieties can get away with minimal if any type of staking. They are easy and attractive to grow in small gardens.  We have hot pepper varieties for Mexican, Asian or Cajun cooking.

Sweet

The sweet peppers on the other hand have larger, thicker walled fruit starting off green or pale yellowish green and ripening to a range of colours from yellow to red.  They have similar cultural requirements as the hot peppers just they might require some staking as their fruit get larger making the plants somewhat top heavy.  Protecting the fruit from intense sun is also important as it can scald, usually the plants foliage is all that is required but in extreme cases some shading may be required.