Growing Instructions for Peppers and Chillies

Season: 

Summer 

Peppers and chillies are warm-weather crops and usually die down during the winter months. 

Position: 

Full sun 

Peppers and chillies like hot conditions. So, you can plant these in full sun in the hottest area of your garden, where they can get 6 to 8 hours of sunshine. 

 

Soil ph: 

Between 6,5 and 7 

 

Watering needs: 

Water regularly – at least 3 times a week. 

 

Possible pests & problems: 

Aphids (very rare) 

 

Maintenance & Extras: 

Peppers and chillies are easy to grow. It is a good idea to have stakes ready because sometimes the branches can get so heavy with fruit that they can break off. Once you have fruit on your plant, you might need some bird netting. 

 

Additional fertilizers: 

Foliar feed (once a month) 

Root feed (once a month) 

 

Harvest: 

Wait for your peppers and chillies to fully mature and/or change colour before you harvest. (Unless it is a Green variety, like Green Pepper/Green Bell Pepper). 

 

Cultivars: 

There are so many different types of Peppers and Chillies available that we cannot even list all of them here. Some varieties have no spiciness, like Green, Red and Yellow Bell Peppers and Red and Yellow Paprika. Some have very little heat and are rather seen as sweet peppers, like the Malawi Sundew Pepper.

The heat in chillies can range from mild, medium, hot to very hot, depending on the variety. Some of the hottest chillies are the Carolina Reaper, Ghost Chilli and Trinidad Moruga Scorpion (to name just a few). Chilli heat is measured by the Scoville Scale (also called Scoville Heat Unit or SHU). The Scoville scale is a measurement of pungency (spiciness or “heat”), named after scientist Wilbur Scoville, who found a way to measure the pungency of chilli peppers in 1912. Carolina Reaper measures an average of 1,569,300 – 2,200,000 SHU on the Scoville scale, Trinidad Scorpion is between 1,2 million to 2,009,231 SHU, Ghost Pepper is around 1,001,304 and Bird’s Eye chilli ranges from 100,000 to 225,000. Habanero chillies are between 100,000 and 350,000 SHU and Cayenne Pepper is between 30,000 and 50,000 SHU. Serrano chillies measure between 10,000 and 25,000 SHU and Jalapeno can be anything from 1,000 to 20,000 SHU, depending on the variety. 

 

General: 

Some pepper and chilli plants might need staking as they might break branches or fall over when they are loaded heavily with fruit. Protect from birds if needed. Mulch well. 

Peppers and Chillies can be grown in containers of at least 30 cm deep. 

Peppers and chillies can be planted with asparagus, basil, brinjal, cucumber, lettuce, rosemary, squashes, tomatoes, turmeric and ginger.

Keep peppers and chillies away from dill, fennel, strawberry and the brassica family (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, etc.).