The Trusty Gardener-Transplanting Peppers

About 30 Days Until Garden Planting

It’s getting closer. Are my fellow gardeners getting excited? The garden is rototilled. Soon I can plant. If only the rain would stop.

I want to get some early-season crops planted, such as peas and onions. Also some Kale, Lettuce, Pac Choi, Swiss Chard and other greens. In early to mid-April it was very dry here, as I was able to get the garden tilled and the yard cleaned up for mowing. I thought planting might be early due to the dry conditions. But recently we have gotten quite a bit of rain. And more rain. The garden is wet and muddy. So I will have to wait to plant the cold-hardy vegetables.

This Spring I wrote an article when I planted the pepper seeds. Recently I transplanted them into individual peat pots so they can grow and be ready for the garden by the end of May or early June.

The seeds germinated well although it took longer than did the tomato seeds. Peppers seem to take forever to come up. Slowly but surely they emerged and I ended up with plenty of seedlings.

As I wrote in the article regarding transplanting tomatoes, I also used peat pots and a good quality potting soil for the peppers. I have had great results with these over the years. They are natural and when the plants are placed in the garden, the entire peat pot is planted. No pots to clean out to use again. A simple process.

I planted only one sweet pepper variety, Burpee Gypsy Hybrid. They grow to be about 4.5 inches long by about 2.5 inches wide. As they ripen they turn from yellow to orange to red. These types of peppers are also known as snack peppers since they are smaller in size.

Now for the hot peppers. Get ready! Get set! 12 Varieties!

I found a hot pepper seed mix on Amazon that looked interesting. This mix contains Caloro, Cayenne Thick, Cayenne Purple, Cayenne Yellow, Firecracker, Hungarian Hot Wax, Jalapeno Mild, College 64, Red Cherry Large Hot, Serrano Tam, Small Red Cherry, and Pretty Purple.

These vary in hotness, the hottest being the Pretty Purple, Firecracker, and College 64. A large range of Scoville Units. Depending on how adventurous you want to be.

Since this is a mix, the varieties I end up with will be a surprise. I transplanted 12 sweet peppers and 12 hot. An element of surprise is always fun when gardening. I transplanted about a dozen each of the Burpee Gypsy and hot peppers.

Stay tuned for more gardening articles from The Trusty Gardener.