12 secrets to growing peppers
May 22, 2021 32 Comments
Peppers, the vegetable with the unique taste and the most colors than any other vegetable! Peppers are a key ingredient of Mediterranean cuisine, combining a unique taste, crunchy texture and characteristic aroma.
The pepper crop reaches a height of about 1 meter and, depending on the variety, forms fruits in various shapes, from oblong to rounder with bright colors such as green, yellow, orange and red.
The fruit of the pepper has a very important nutritional value as it contains many vitamins and antioxidants, very beneficial for our health. At the same time, it has a low fat content and is therefore suitable for weight loss diets.
The pepper plant belongs to the same family as the tomato and eggplant, the Solanaceae family, and they are native to Central and South America.
Pepper cultivation usually begins in the spring and is a relatively easy crop that, with proper care, gives us many fruits to enjoy in the summer.
If we don’t have space available in the garden, we can grow peppers in pots on the balcony or in our yard.
It is an opportunity to plant types of pepper that are difficult to find commercially and to enjoy unique flavors. So let’s see how we grow our favorite pepper varieties to enjoy them fresh and crunchy in wonderful salads and unique cooking recipes.
Advertising
1. What are the most famous types and varieties of pepper?
Although there are many types of pepper, most pepper varieties and hybrids grown in our country belong to the Capsicum annuum species. Among the most popular traditional and local pepper varieties are the following:
- Horn pepper: Variety of pepper that produces oblong greenish-yellow fruits that are usually enjoyed fried.
- Green Horn Pepper: long, narrow green pepper, great for putting in vinegar and pickling, although many use it fresh in salad.
- Florinis Peppers: Popular variety of pepper that produces red sweet oblong fruits, slightly conical with thick walls that are roasted and stuffed with cheese.
- Flask pepper : Favorite pepper varieties that give
- round or relatively square fruits in green, red, orange and yellow, ideal for salad or cooking.
- Dolma pepper : A variety of pepper that gives square fruits with a light green color with a thin skin suitable for cooking stuffing.
- Hot Ierapetra: Local variety of long narrow pepper, very hot.
A special mention must be made of the hot peppers that have their own fanatical audience, such as the chili pepper and the cayenne pepper that are an excellent raw material for many spicy recipes.
In recent years, many new varieties and types of pepper are becoming popular in our country, such as the hot chili peppers (Cayenne), which have their own fanatical audience in our country. jalapenos, hot Habaneros and Ancho, which is a dried Poblano pepper with a sweet and mildly hot taste.
Red hot chilli peppers
2. How do we create pepper plants from seed?
The pepper is propagated by the seed collected from the fruit of the plant. It is useful to keep our own pepper seed so that we can grow every year knowing the special characteristics of each variety.
We should know that the pepper seed takes time to germinate and needs some patience. At suitable temperatures around 20°C and in an environment with enough moisture, the pepper seed needs at least 2-3 weeks to germinate.
It will take another 4-5 weeks until the new plant from seed is ready for transplanting. For this reason, the appropriate sowing season in our nursery is in the month of February in a small greenhouse, in order to plant early, in April, the plants we have prepared.
3. What conditions does the pepper crop need to grow?
Pepper cultivation loves warm environment and is relatively sensitive to winds and cold. The nighttime drop in temperature can cause the upper leaves of the pepper to deform and show a characteristic curling.
We plant the young pepper plants from the middle of April until the beginning of summer, when both day and night temperatures will have started to rise.
In the southern parts of Greece, where the winter is milder, the pepper plant does not dry up at the end of the growing year despite the frost. With proper pruning in late winter, the pepper can sprout again and give us new production the following year.
View this post on Instagram
4. At what distances do we plant the peppers?
When planting pepper we choose appropriate planting distances, about 50 cm between plants and 80–100 cm between planting lines to ensure better ventilation.
The sparse planting of pepper plants contributes significantly to the reduction of the development of fungal diseases and insect attacks, as well as to the improvement of production both qualitatively and quantitatively, due to greater exposure to sunlight.
During the development of the pepper, in the first 4 weeks, we remove the first flowers to prevent the plant from forming rich foliage and to protect the fruits from burns due to the intense sunlight.
We use geotextile to limit weed growth
5. How can we grow peppers in a pot on the balcony?
To grow pepper in a pot, we choose suitable sunny spots on the balcony or in our yard. We prefer positions facing south or west and sheltered from strong winds.
Pepper plants have a relatively short growth, so we plant in pots with a diameter of 25-30 cm. Make sure that the pots have holes in the base and place a thin layer of 3-4 cm of gravel or pumice stone at the bottom of the pot, to remove the excess water from watering.
To fill the pots, we choose special potting soil for vegetables, enriched in nutrients. Alternatively, we make our own mixture by mixing peat, manure, perlite in a volume ratio of 2:1:1.
6. How often does the pepper crop need watering?
Pepper cultivation has quite a lot of water needs to thrive and needs regular watering.
We water the peppers about 2 times a week during the spring and autumn. In the hot summer months, peppers need more frequent watering, about every 2 days.
A suitable system for watering the vegetable garden and peppers is drip irrigation, as it ensures uniform watering, saves water and avoids the growth of many unwanted grasses (weeds).
We are careful during flowering, as the lack of water as well as excessive watering can cause the pepper flowers to fall, resulting in a reduced fruiting of the plants.
8 secrets for watering vegetables in the garden and in pots
7. What fertilizer do we put on the peppers and how often?
Pepper cultivation has important nutritional requirements to ensure good growth and quality fruit production.
Initially, when transplanting the pepper into the soil, we incorporate organic matter into the planting pits, in the form of compost and digested manure, as well as complete organic fertilizer, rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
During cultivation, it is important to add monthly, complete organic fertilizer, fortified in potassium, to strengthen the plants with nutrients to ensure tasty and crunchy fruits.
Additionally, the addition of calcium fertilizer helps to combat dry top, the phenomenon that causes blackening of pepper fruits.
Dry Top: Blacks on peppers
8. What diseases and insects affect pepper cultivation?
The pepper crop is relatively resistant to attack by fungal diseases. The most important disease we encounter is powdery mildew, which manifests itself in the formation of spots on pepper leaves.
To deal with powdery mildew on peppers, we use an organic wettable sulfur formulation that we obtain from agricultural stores.
Alternatively, on a preventive level, we can spray the pepper foliage with homemade ingredients by dissolving 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 2 tablespoons of olive oil in 2 liters of water.
How do we deal with powdery mildew on tomatoes and peppers?
Various insects can be encountered in pepper cultivation, such as mealybugs, stinkbugs, mealybugs, mealybugs and leafhoppers that can cause serious problems.
To combat them effectively, we supply various approved biological insecticides from agricultural stores, such as potassium salt soaps, Thuringia bacillus and natural pyrethrin.
Alternatively, for preventive protection against insects and tetranych, we can make our own ecological preparations with homemade materials, dissolving a tablespoon of grated green soap and a teaspoon of rubbing alcohol in a liter of water.
How we use sulfur in plants (+video)
9. Does pepper cultivation need pruning?
The outdoor cultivation of pepper shows vigorous growth and gives good fruiting without having special pruning requirements. To facilitate better ventilation of the plant, we only do small operations by removing the low leaves that are close to the ground and those that are old and yellowing.
In areas with a mild winter, if we prune the peppers in late winter, they will give us fruit production the following year as well.
10. When do we harvest the peppers and how do we store them?
The pepper fruits are harvested in the summer, approximately 9-12 weeks after transplanting the plants. The harvest season varies depending on the variety of pepper, weather conditions and cultivation practices such as watering and fertilization.
We collect the pepper fruits when they reach their final size, relatively unripe with crispy flesh and the characteristic color of the variety we have chosen. The colored varieties of pepper are slow to get the final yellow, red or orange color and this is usually due to the lack of fertilization with potassium.
During harvesting, it is very important to cut the fruits with part of the pedicel so that they have a longer shelf life so that they do not lose moisture from the point of cutting.
11. How to store and preserve peppers better
We can easily preserve and preserve the fruits of the pepper in the refrigerator in a paper bag for several days to enjoy them fresh or cooked in our salads and meals.
We can also dry some pepper varieties or pickle them and preserve them in vinegar for several months.
12. And one last secret for pepper cultivation
The burning sensation that hot peppers leave in our mouths is due to the capsaicin substance found in the inner skin of the pepper fruit. The level of hotness of the pepper, i.e. the capsaicin content is measured in Scorville degrees (SHU).
Share the article with your friends: