Peppers have always been one of the most popular vegetables in the home garden. 

There are some differences between growing peppers and other vegetables. What works well for tomatoes, cabbage, carrots and other vegetables won’t necessarily work for hot peppers. Even seasoned gardeners have trouble starting hot peppers. That's why i encourage beginners to start with hot pepper transplants.  As a member of the nightshade family, hot peppers have some specific requirements that seem counter-intuitive when you’ve grown other fruits and vegetables in the past. Here’s my step-by-step guide to help you reap your best hot pepper crops.  Sweet bell peppers, and many hot peppers, are native to Central and North America. A wide range of hot pepper varieties are also native to Asia, most notably Thailand and China. Peppers were grown extensively in central and south America, Mexico, and the west of India long time before birth of Christ. But it was Columbus and other explorers who introduced peppers to Europe. In fact, the pepper is a major new entry to the cuisine of the old world. The Europeans became so fond of peppers, they carried them throughout our new world.

There are hundreds of different varieties of peppers, if not more, as peppers mutate spontaneously. Plus that they taste different when grown in different areas. They come in a wide range of colors, flavors, shapes, heat levels and sizes. Peppers are a tender, warm-season crop. They resist most garden pests and offer something for everyone: spicy, sweet, or hot, and a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. Pepper varieties can be divided broadly into sweet peppers and hot peppers, or chiles.All chiles peppers are various species of the genus Capsicum of the plant family Solanaceae, and are thus related to eggplants and tomatoes.

Sweet peppers:

Sweet pepper covers a wide variety of mild peppers that like the chile belong to the capsicum family. The best known sweet peppers are bell peppers, named for their bell-like shape. They have a mild, sweet flavor and crisp juicy flesh. When young most bell peppers are a rich, bright green, but there are also yellow, orange, purple, red and brown Green peppers are less sweet and slightly more bitter than yellow or orange peppers, but red bell peppers is the sweetest. Bell pepper is the most popular sweet pepper , which accounts for more than 60 percent of the domestic pepper crop.The taste of ripe peppers can also vary with growing conditions. the sweetest fruits are allowed to ripen fully on the plant in full sunshine, while fruit harvested green and after-ripened in storage is less sweet. Bell Peppers are one of the most disease-resistant types of peppers,they are easy to grow for beginners.

How to Grow Organic Peppers

Growing bell peppers should be done in the warm season. The Ideal growing conditions for bell peppers include warm soil, ideally 21 to 29 °C {70 to 84 °F}, that is kept moist but not waterlogged. Bell peppers are sensitive to an abundance of moisture and extreme temperatures.When thinking about how to grow peppers, remember that they prefer higher temperatures, and when you plant peppers, be sure that the chance of frost is long gone. A frost will either kill the plants altogether, or inhibit pepper growth so you have bare plants.

1: Choose a sunny, well-drained spot where peppers haven’t grown recently. The soil should be deep, rich, and loamy. If yours isn’t, amend it with about 1 inch of compost. Avoid adding too much nitrogen to the soil, however. Excessive nitrogen can cause the pepper plants to grow too fast, making them more susceptible to disease and less productive.

Try to choose a location that receives direct sunlight, and make sure you plant the peppers far enough away from other hearty fruits and vegetables to avoid competition for nutrients. Peppers do best if they’re grown in places with temperatures around 70 degrees or hotter.

2:Dig holes large enough to accommodate growing pepper plants. Use a shovel or hand trowel to dig holes roughly 6-8 inches deep and 10-12 inches wide.  Aerate the soil around the holes thoroughly.  Plant the pepper seedlings in the holes and refill them loosely. Your peppers should be planted approximately 12-18 inches apart to have room to grow without overtaking one another.

3: Water the plants regularly every 1-2 days, depending on what the weather is like.  Peppers grown in hotter climates will likely need more water. An inch or two of water per week is best for most  pepper plants of average size in moderate growing conditions.  Avoid over watering, as this can kill the plant or make it susceptible to disease. Make sure that your soil is well-drained so that water doesn’t pool around the plants and turn the soil soggy.
4: Mix organic matter into the soil around the plants. Break up the soil around the plants every few weeks and add a shovelful of mulch or compost.

Your  peppers will grow more efficiently if they can feed off the organic matter. Some pepper plants don’t even need a separate fertilizer if a little compost is added to the soil at intervals. Calcium deficiency can cause the bottom end to rot on peppers, so you can increase the amount of calcium in your soil by grinding eggshells and mixing it in with your soil . If you use a fertilizer, make sure it has lower nitrogen content and it is not ammonia-based.  Excess nitrogen and ammonium can be a cause of calcium deficiency.

5: Support the plants with garden stakes once they’re large enough. As your peppers grow, the fruit can become heavy, The best way to stake peppers is to drive a wooden or metal stake next to the plant . Then, simply tie the main stem and branches of the plant loosely to the stake using torn sheets . Continue to add ties as needed while the plants are actively growing.

Not only does pepper staking help support plants, keeping them upright, but pepper staking can also reduce sunscald on fruits and helps keep them off the ground, where they are susceptible to pests or rotting.

Sweet pepper varieties

California Wonder: This pepper have a consistent production, sweet and crispy,turns from green to red.

Carmen: Italian sweet pepper, green to red, 3"-4" long, very prolific and tolerant of varied temperatures.

Orange Blaze:This pepper have a good disease resistance,it turn from green to bright orange.

Mexibell: This pepper is large and blocky bell pepper, have a mild chili flavor.

Block Party: This pepper maintain a consistent fruit shape, plants average 2 feet tall, sweet and tangy flavor.

Gold Standard: Very large sweet pepper variety,this pepper have a consistent production.

Sweetheart:This pepper have a good disease resistance, very sweet,turn green to red.

Sweet Banana: This heirloom sweet pepper variety is a  6"-7" long and tapered, thin skin, pale yellow to light orange to deep red.

Friggitello: Italian pepper is a 3"-4" long and is tapered with slight wrinkles.

Bull Nosed: Very large heirloom bell pepper variety,have a mild and sweet taste, pepper is blocky with thick walls,turn from green to red.

Most bell peppers turn red on ripening, but there are also yellow, orange, white and purple.

Hot peppers

Hot peppers are distinguished from sweet peppers simply by their pungency or hotness of flavor. There are thousands of hot pepper varieties in the world.

Most commonly hot peppers are called chili peppers. Chili and the term came to be commonly used to describe any pepper that was hot flavored.

Capsaicin is the chemical in hot pepper varieties that produces the heat. Hot peppers are rated with a Scoville score which indicates the amount of capsaicin in each variety. The hotness of a pepper is determined by number of blisterlike sacs of capsaicinoids on the interior wall of the pepper. Capsaicinoids are organic chemicals. The more sacs of capsaicinoids the hotter the pepper.

Hot peppers are easy to grow. And, they  need well drained soil with lots of organic matter mixed in for feeding and drainage. As a lover of hot peppers, you will likely grow several varieties. In addition to varying degrees of "heat", each hot has it's own taste and texture. Think of what you can do with the choice and selection!

Hot peppers go by several names.  Most commonly hot peppers are called chili peppers in the United States. ‘Chile’ is Spanish for pepper. In Mexico chile dulce is a sweet pepper, chile jalapeño is a jalapeño pepper. When the name chile first came to the United States it was used to mean different kinds of peppers in different parts of the country. In time, the spelling “chile” was eventually corrupted to “chili” and the term came to be commonly used to describe any pepper that was hot flavored.

Hot Pepper Varieties

Cayenne: Cayenne chiles are long, skinny, and very hot.They are relatives of wild chiles from South and Central America.This bright red pepper is usually consumed in its dried.
Hot Banana: Banana pepper grows both sweet and hot varieties.known as bácskai fehér in Hungary. About 6 to 7 inches long.

Serrano:  the serrano pepper is a small Mexican pepper with thick, juicy walls, so it’s a great hot-salsa pepper, and is widely available and versatile.About 1.5 to 2.5 inches long.

Thai: This tiny chile adds serious amounts of heat to Southeast Asian cuisines. You may find either green or red Thai chiles; both are very spicy. Throw them whole into Thai soups .About 1 to 2 inches long

Hot Cherry: These pepper vary in size and shape and are very hot. They are usually round, though sometimes more of a triangular shape. Cherry peppers can also be sweet.About 1 to 2 inches long.

Harvesting Peppers

Most varieties of  peppers, like bell peppers, will be ready to harvest between 60-90 days after they're transplanted outdoors. They will feel firm and crisp when ready.  Pick your peppers more frequently earlier in the season. The peppers are still edible when they’re small Pick them at about 2 inches long, and picking them when they’re small will allow the plant to grow more and larger fruit later on in the season. Keep growing and harvesting your peppers from your  garden until the first frost.

Tips
Pepper plants are generally very low maintenance, but they will produce larger peppers if you pinch off some of the flower buds once the plant starts to produce peppers. Growing Peppers is an unique and interesting experience. I hope you will try to grow your own organic peppers!

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 Happy Organic gardening!