Small sweet peppers

[Rosyrain]

I love to make stuffed sweet peppers and have a recipe that I adapted from when I had them at a friends house last year. I make a filling with cream cheese, diced green onions, panko bread crumbs, cheddar cheese, and bacon. I then stuff the peppers and top them off with French fried onions before baking them in the oven. They taste amazing, but the sweet peppers are expensive when they are not in season. I thought about growing them this summer and saving some money this way. Have any of you grown sweet peppers before?

 

[fuumarumota]

Yep, they're delicious indeed. They need lots of sunlight and they cannot stand extreme cold temperatures. I think you can grow them in summer, just make sure the plant gets enough sun/heat , around 5 hours a day. Beware of cold nights, better have them in pots and get them inside the house in case of low temperatures.

I have grown some of these lately and they do great.

 

[claudine]

This recipe sounds delicious Rosyrain I'm a vegetarian, so I'd skip bacon, but the rest of the ingredients are great.
I've never tried growing sweet peppers. Here, where I live, they're very inexpensive.

 

[marlingardener]

Rosy, we are in the same zone as you, and we find that California Wonders do very well. They are fairly large, blocky, and disease resistant, and have a very good flavor. We have also grown Gypsy, which is a pointed pepper, but quite prolific.
Peppers do require more water than some of our vegetables, but, for the two of us with plenty to freeze and also give away, six plants are more than enough.

 

[ydolem11]

You can also try growing peppers from seeds harvested from organic peppers that you buy from the store, especially if it's a variety that you really like. I've got a couple dozen seedlings out on my balcony right now from a red pepper I picked up at the grocery store. Saving seeds is super easy, and is probably cheaper or about the same price as buying organic seeds since you're paying for the vegetable that you're going to eat anyway but then get the added bonus of growing your own after that. I recommend organic because then you know for sure what you're getting and the seeds will actually sprout. Many GMO plants produce seeds that are sterile to prevent people from growing their own like that.