9 hot tips for growing peppers

From mild to hot, peppers are tropical natives that need heat to thrive. Here are a few pepper-growing tips that you can apply to your crop.

These tropical natives, whether sweet or hot, need warmth to thrive.

• Big, sweet bell peppers need plenty of moisture, too, although hot peppers like slightly drier conditions.
• Start seeds indoors six weeks before you want to set out plants and keep them at about 21°C.
• Transplant outdoors a month after the last frost, once the soil temperature is above 18°C.

• Don't plant peppers where you previously grew potatoes, eggplant, or tomatoes.

All of these members of the nightshade family are prone to the same soil-borne diseases.

Peppers like a well-aerated bed.

• Turn the soil to 30 centimetres deep and amend with a generous shovelful of compost for each plant.
• Set seedlings a little deeper than they grew in their containers, so that the low seedling leaves are barely covered.
• Peppers don't develop roots along their stems; deep planting insulates roots from heat and dryness.

• For healthy, productive peppers, mulch around the plants with black plastic: split-open garbage bags are fine.

It warms the soil for these heat-loving plants and protects against soil-borne fungal diseases transmitted by splashing water.

Sweet peppers need even, moderate moisture around their roots.

• Water with a drip irrigation or soaker hose hidden beneath a mulch of grass clippings or hay.

• To grow the hottest chilies, plant them in your sunniest spot and harvest on the warmest days.

Hot weather brings out their heat.

Use some kind of shade cover to help sweet peppers set more fruit.

• You can angle one over the south side of your plantings or tie a piece of lightweight cloth to stakes.

When your peppers blossom, put several drops of honey on each plant. This attracts bees, which pollinate the plants. Repeat regularly and you'll get more and larger peppers.

Peppers come in so many different packages that it's easy to get confused.

• Bell peppers are considered sweet peppers, although they don't actually taste sweet until they change colours and become red, orange, or yellow. Pimiento peppers are similar, with very thick flesh.
• Unusual sweet peppers include 'Gypsy,' which has a conical shape. There are also sweet bananas and wonderfully flavourful frying and roasting peppers with long, tapered fruits. These unusual sweet peppers often produce better in short-season areas than large-fruited bell peppers.
• Mildy hot peppers include jalapeño, Anaheim, and poblano peppers, as well as many slightly hot varieties seldom seen in stores, such as 'Garden Salsa.' If you like only a little heat, check catalogues for these lowburn varieties.
• Hot peppers include Serranos and cayennes, which are plenty hot, but some people really go for the burn by growing habaneros.