Sweet peppers can be grown very easily in your vegetable garden.

Sweet peppers are the relation to chillies and are grown in the same way, so if you have already grown chillies than you shouldn’t have any problems growing sweet pepper.

Peppers like to grow in well-drained soil, and their preference would be a greenhouse or some kind of covering – if that’s not possible then a hot sunny corner of the garden will do.

One of the important things is that peppers need a long season, and that is the biggest mistake people do, they start the seeds too late in the season.

 

It’s best to start to sow pepper seeds in January or February – you sow the seeds in pots filled with moist multi-purpose compost, then place the pots in a heated propagator if you haven’t got a lot of light where you have you propagator then you may benefit from a grow light, as this prevents the seedlings from growing tall and leggy, this happens as seeds naturally want to grow towards the light.

 

If you don’t have a propagator you would sow the seeds in March. Once the plants get true leaves – these are the leaves that come up after the first two open up – then you can plant each seedling into a pot, you can repot several times to ensure the plants have a continues growing time. Once the plant is established you need to decide where to plant them. If growing in pots you need to give them a large pot of at least 10 to 12 inches, alternatively plant them in soil or growbags in your greenhouse. If you are keeping them outside, plant them out when all risk of frost has gone, usually end of May.

 

Some people pinch out the growing tips when the pepper is around 30 to 40cm tall, which encourages the pepper plant to become bushy. If you are growing a taller variety then you may need to stake the plant.

You need to water your plants little and often. Once the plants start to flower you need to feed them a weekly high potash feed.

In hot weather pepper likes you to mist their leaves as this can deter red spider mites

You can pick peppers as they come, usually late summer, it depends on how large you want them, you can pick them green or you can also let them ripen on the plant.

But keep feeding the pepper plants with a high potash feed as this will help new flowers set so you get more peppers!

Pest: you will need to protect young plants from slugs and snails and peppers can get grey mould or blossom which is often caused by irregular watering. If you see red spider mite then just spray mist your plants. And if you see white fly then spray the plants with soapy water.