How to Grow Peppers:
Bell, Sweet, and Hot Peppers

Why Grow Peppers?

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Peppers are one of the most colorful and productive crops in the summer garden. Sweet bell peppers turn from green to red, yellow, or orange on the plant. Banana peppers are perfect for pickling, and jalapeños and habaneros are there for the heat lovers. Once you learn how to grow peppers, you can pick them green or wait for full color.

Pepper plants are pretty enough for a flower bed, they produce for months, and they're useful in the kitchen in more ways than almost any other vegetable.

The secret to growing peppers is warmth. Get the timing and the heat right, and peppers are easy to grow. For more reading, see the University of Minnesota Extension's guide to growing peppers.

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How to Grow Peppers from Seed

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Peppers take longer to get going than most garden vegetables. Start the seeds indoors 8 to 10 weeks before your last frost. Peppers are in no hurry to sprout, so give yourself the time.

1. Keep them warm. Peppers sprout best at 80 to 85°F. A seedling heat mat makes a real difference, especially if your house runs cool. Without one, seeds can take two to three weeks to come up, or not come up at all.
2. Sow shallow. Sow seeds about a quarter inch deep in a good seed starting mix.
3. Keep them moist. Keep the mix evenly moist, but not soaked.
4. Give them bright light. As soon as seedlings come up, move them under strong light. A sunny windowsill rarely gives enough, and weak light makes tall, leggy seedlings.
5. Pot them up. When seedlings have two or three sets of leaves, move them into larger pots.
6. Harden off and plant out. Follow the chart at the top of this page for hardening off and planting out.

Our guide to growing vegetables from seed and seed starting chart cover seed starting in more detail.

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Choosing the Right Pepper Variety

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There are hundreds of pepper varieties, from big sweet bell peppers to tiny fiery chiles. Choosing the right one for your garden and your kitchen is the first step. Matching the variety to your summer is a big part of how to grow peppers successfully.

Sweet peppers include bell peppers, banana peppers, Italian frying peppers, and pimentos. They're mild, fruity, and useful in almost any dish.

Hot peppers run from mildly spicy jalapeños and poblanos to hot cayennes, serranos, and Thai chiles, all the way up to habaneros, Scotch bonnets, and ghost peppers.

Think about how you cook. If heat isn't your priority, there's a huge range of sweet peppers to try.

Check the days to maturity

Bell peppers are ready to eat green in 70 to 75 days, but they need another 3 to 4 weeks to ripen to red, yellow, or orange. That means they need a long frost-free season.

In short-season areas, look for varieties labeled early or short-season. Hot peppers often ripen faster than bell peppers, so they're a good choice for northern gardens.

Popular pepper varieties for home gardens

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When to Plant Peppers: Timing Is Everything

Timing is the most important part of growing peppers. Peppers need more heat than almost any other common vegetable, even more than tomatoes. If there's one rule in how to grow peppers, it's to wait for warm soil and warm nights.

Cold soil does lasting harm. A pepper transplant in cold soil doesn't just grow slowly. It can suffer chilling injury that holds it back for weeks, long after the soil warms up.

Plant peppers out about two weeks after your last frost, when the soil is at least 65°F, and ideally 70°F, at six inches deep. Nights below 55°F make peppers drop their blossoms, even when the days are warm.

Pepper planting dates by zone

Find your zone below. Don't know it? Our free Zone Finder looks it up from your zip code.

These are average dates. Frost can come a week or two earlier or later, so check your local forecast and your soil temperature. Ripe red, yellow, or orange peppers come 3 to 4 weeks after the first green ones. In zones 10 and 11, start seeds in late fall or winter, and plant out in late winter.

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Transplanting and Spacing Peppers

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Plant peppers at the same depth they grew in their pots. Unlike tomatoes, peppers don't like to be planted deep. Planting them too deep can slow their growth. Shallow planting is one of the small differences in how to grow peppers compared with tomatoes.

Harden them off over 7 to 10 days. Peppers sunburn easily when they go straight from indoors to full sun. Start with an hour or two in a sheltered spot with indirect light, and add a little more time and sun each day.

Properly hardened-off peppers settle in quickly. Plants moved straight outdoors often get bleached leaves and stall for weeks.

Give them room. Space pepper plants 18 to 24 inches apart in rows, or 18 inches apart in raised beds. Crowded plants compete for light and water, and poor air flow invites disease.

After planting, water well. If the weather is very hot and sunny, give the plants a little shade for the first two or three days.

Pepper spacing and container guide

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Soil, Sun, and Site for Growing Peppers

Peppers need full sun: eight or more hours a day. In part shade they grow slowly and set little fruit, so give them the sunniest spot you have. Full sun is not optional when you learn how to grow peppers.

A warm wall is a bonus. Peppers planted against a south- or west-facing wall or fence soak up the extra reflected heat and often outgrow those in the open.

They need soil that drains well. Peppers like fertile soil with a pH of 6.0 to 6.8. In soggy soil, their roots rot quickly. If your soil drains poorly, grow peppers in a raised bed. Work plenty of compost into the bed before planting.

Rotate your crops. Don't plant peppers where peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, or potatoes grew in the last two years. They're all in the nightshade family and share the same soil pests and diseases.

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Watering and Feeding Peppers

Peppers want steady moisture: never soggy, never bone dry. Soggy soil rots the roots, and drought makes the plants drop their flowers. Even watering is a quiet part of how to grow peppers that prevents many problems.

In hot weather, peppers in the ground usually need water every two or three days. Peppers in pots need water every day, and sometimes twice a day in a heat wave.

Water at the base of the plant, not over the leaves. Wet leaves invite disease.

For hotter hot peppers, let the soil get a little dry between waterings for the last three or four weeks before harvest. Many growers find this makes the peppers hotter. Sweet peppers need steady water all season.

Feeding peppers in two stages

From planting until the first flowers, use a balanced vegetable fertilizer to build roots and leaves.

Once the first flowers open, switch to a fertilizer higher in potassium. A tomato fertilizer works well. Too much nitrogen at this stage gives you a big green plant with few peppers.

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Supporting and Pruning Pepper Plants

Stake larger pepper plants. Bell peppers carry heavy fruit, and branches can snap in the wind. A single stake tied loosely with soft garden twine is enough.

Put the stake in at planting time. Pushing one in later can damage the roots.

Pinch off the first flower bud. Many growers remove the first flower that forms, at the first fork in the stem, soon after planting out. The plant then puts its energy into roots and branches, and you get a bigger plant with more peppers later.

Beyond that, peppers need little pruning. Just remove any damaged, diseased, or crossing branches to keep air moving through the plant.

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Companion Planting for Peppers

Good neighbors for peppers: basil helps keep aphids, thrips, and spider mites away. French marigolds deter many soil and leaf pests. Carrots and onions are good companions too, and the onion scent confuses many insects.

Tomatoes and peppers grow well side by side, since they like the same conditions. Just don't keep them in the same bed year after year.

Keep peppers away from fennel, which holds back the growth of most vegetables. Cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower aren't good bedmates either, because they need very different soil, water, and feeding.

See our companion planting chart for the full list, and our guide to growing tomatoes for their close cousin.

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Common Pepper Problems and Solutions

Blossom drop is the most common pepper problem. Flowers form and then fall off without making peppers. It's almost always the temperature: above 90°F by day or below 55°F at night, the pollen fails and the plant drops the flower. Steady temperatures are part of how to grow peppers without blossom drop.

No spray fixes it. Once temperatures settle, the plants start setting fruit again. Light shade in a heat wave, and early varieties in cool climates, both help.

Big, healthy plants with few peppers usually have too much nitrogen. Switch to a tomato fertilizer, and fruiting usually improves within a few weeks.

Sunscald shows as pale, papery patches on peppers in strong sun, often where leaves have been lost. It's only skin deep, and the pepper is still good to eat.

Aphids cluster on the tips and under the leaves, curling the new growth. A strong spray of water knocks most of them off, and insecticidal soap or neem oil handles the rest.

Pepper problems at a glance

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How and When to Harvest Peppers

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Every pepper starts green and ripens to its final color: red, yellow, orange, chocolate, or purple. Green and ripe peppers are the same fruit at different stages. Picking often is the last step in how to grow peppers that keep producing.

Green peppers are crisp, with a slightly grassy flavor. Ripe peppers are sweeter and richer, with more vitamins C and A. But ripening takes 3 to 4 more weeks, and the plant makes fewer new peppers while it ripens the old ones.

Most gardeners do both: pick some green to keep the plant producing, and leave a few to ripen for flavor.

Cut, don't pull. Use scissors or a sharp knife and cut the stem about an inch above the pepper. Pulling or twisting breaks branches. Keep picking: the more you pick, the more the plant produces.

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How to Grow Peppers in Containers

Peppers are one of the best vegetables for pots. Containers warm up faster than garden soil, so peppers in pots on a hot, sunny patio or against a south-facing wall often bear earlier and more heavily than peppers in the ground.

Pick a big enough pot: at least 5 gallons for compact hot peppers, and 10 gallons for bell peppers and larger sweet peppers. Use a good potting mix with compost, not garden soil.

Mix a slow-release fertilizer into the potting mix at planting. Once flowers appear, add a weekly liquid tomato feed.

Bring them in before frost. Potted peppers can come indoors to a bright window in early fall and keep producing for weeks. You can even keep them through the winter under grow lights and plant them out again in spring, where they'll fruit earlier than new plants.

See our container vegetable gardening guide for more on growing vegetables in pots.

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Pepper Growing Questions

How long does it take to grow peppers from seed to harvest?

From sowing seeds indoors to the first green peppers usually takes about 20 to 24 weeks, one of the longest times of any common vegetable. From planting out to the first green peppers is usually 70 to 80 days. Add 3 to 4 weeks for fully ripe, colored peppers.

Why do my peppers stay green and never turn red or yellow?

Peppers only color up when they're fully mature, 3 to 4 weeks after the green harvest date on the seed packet. Too little heat, a short season, too many peppers on the plant at once, or a variety that stays green can all keep them from coloring.

Can I grow peppers in a cold climate?

Yes. Choose early varieties (under 70 days to green), start seeds indoors 8 to 10 weeks before your last frost, warm the soil with black plastic mulch, and consider growing in pots. Wall-of-water plant protectors let you plant out two to three weeks earlier. Hot peppers usually ripen faster than bell peppers.

Are hot peppers harder to grow than sweet peppers?

No. Their care is the same. Some very hot types, like habaneros, Scotch bonnets, and ghost peppers, sprout more slowly and take longer to ripen, so start them a week or two earlier.

What is the difference between growing peppers and growing tomatoes?

Peppers are slower from seed, need more warmth to sprout, mind cold soil more, and shouldn't be planted deep the way tomatoes are. They handle dry spells better once established, and they're much easier to keep indoors over winter.

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More Vegetable Growing Guides

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