How to grow sweet pepper

Pick a spot that drains well and gets morning sun, on land that has not grown pepper, tomato, potato or eggplant recently — these share a soil disease (bacterial wilt) that has no cure.

Make a raised bed — lift it about a hand-span (15–20 cm) above the ground so water runs off and never sits. Peppers hate wet feet from day one.

Sterilise the bed to kill damping-off fungi and soil pests: burn a layer of dry grass or maize stalks over the surface (quick), or — if you plan ahead — cover the wetted bed with clear plastic in the hot sun for a few weeks (this is called solarising — the trapped heat cooks the germs).

Work in well-rotted compost, not fresh manure — fresh manure burns the tiny roots and carries disease. Then rake the surface fine and level so the small seed sits evenly.

Use clean, certified seed. If you saved your own, treat it first in warm water at 50 °C for 30 minutes (hot to the hand but not scalding — like a very warm bath) to kill seed-borne disease, then dry it.

Make shallow furrows across the bed about a hand's width apart (10 cm) and sow the tiny seed thinly along them.

Cover the seed only a fingernail deep (about 0.5 cm) — barely covered. Small seed buried deep never makes it up.

Water gently with a fine rose or a soft sprinkle so you don't wash the seed away, and keep the bed warm and evenly moist. Sweet pepper sprouts best in warm soil (25–28 °C) and can take 1–2 weeks to show — slower than maize, so be patient.

Once up, thin crowded seedlings so each has room and air — crowded, wet seedlings are exactly what damping-off attacks.

Start about 4–6 weeks after sowing, in the last week or so before transplanting, when the seedlings are a hand-span tall (15–18 cm) with 5–6 true leaves.

Slowly cut back the watering and give the seedlings more direct sun each day, so they toughen up and thicken their stems.

Don't starve them completely — the aim is to toughen the plant, not to check its growth hard.

Water the bed well the evening before you lift them. Moist seedlings lift with a ball of soil on the roots and settle in far better than dry, bare-rooted ones.

Choose land that has not grown pepper, tomato, potato or eggplant for a few seasons — rotating away from them starves out bacterial wilt and other shared diseases.

Make raised beds so water drains away fast — sweet pepper roots rot in wet ground. Never plant it in a spot where water pools.

Work in well-rotted compost or manure to feed the soil and help it hold steady moisture.

Mix the basal fertiliser (a compound carrying N, P and K) into the bed before transplanting — your recommendation gives the amount for your field. Work it in; don't leave it lying on top.

Buy stocky, dark-green seedlings about a hand-span tall (15-18 cm) with 5-6 true leaves and a thick stem — not tall, thin, pale or pot-bound (roots coiled tight in the pot) ones.

Check each one: no mottled, puckered or strappy distorted leaves — a sign of virus — and no wilting or spots. Reject the whole batch if many look sick.

Buy from a nursery that raises its seedlings under net or screen — those carry the fewest thrips, aphids and whitefly, and the least virus.

Transplant them within a day or two of buying, and keep them shaded and watered until you do.

Transplant in the late afternoon or on a cloudy day, never in hot midday sun — the seedlings need the cool night to settle before facing the sun.

Space the plants two hand-spans apart (about 40 cm) along the bed, with three hand-spans (about 60 cm) between rows. Even spacing gives each plant light and air.

Set each seedling only as deep as its root-ball — the soil line stays where it was in the nursery. Do NOT bury the stem, because peppers do not root along a buried stem; it simply rots.

Firm the soil gently around the roots and water each plant in straight away, so the roots meet moist soil with no air gaps.

Mulch around the plants with dry grass or leaves to hold steady moisture and stop the soil drying and cracking.

Twice a week through the first two weeks after transplanting, walk the whole field — not just the edge by the path — and look closely at a sample of plants all over it.

Cutworms: look for young plants cut clean off at the soil line, lying toppled beside the hole (worst overnight). Scratch the soil nearby to find the fat, greasy, grey caterpillar curled into a C.

Aphids and whitefly: turn over the young leaves and shoot tips. Aphids are tiny soft green or black insects in clusters; whitefly are tiny white insects that fly up in a cloud when you shake the plant. Both leave a sticky shine and spread viruses.

Bacterial wilt: watch for a plant that wilts in the heat of the day while its leaves stay green, and doesn't recover overnight. Cut the base of the stem and stand it in clear water — a milky-white thread oozing out confirms it. There is no cure: pull and remove that plant and don't replant pepper in that spot.

If you must spray a pest, measure the dose with the cap, mix it into a full knapsack (15–20 L), cover your skin, eyes and nose, and spray in the cool with the wind behind you, off any food. Wash well afterwards.

About a week after transplanting, walk the rows and note every station where the seedling died or failed to settle.

Fill each gap with a strong spare seedling from the nursery, planted the same way — to the root-ball, in the cool of evening, watered in at once.

Do it early, while the crop is only a week old, so the replacements grow up level with the rest of the field.

Water every 2–3 days from transplanting, keeping the topsoil evenly moist — never bone-dry, never waterlogged.

Water more often in heat and on sandy soils that dry fast; check by pushing a finger in and water when the top few centimetres are dry.

Drain fast after watering or rain. Sweet pepper roots rot in standing water — the moisture should be steady, not soggy.

Aim for an even rhythm. Big swings from dry to soaked are what set up fruit problems weeks down the line.

Twice a week, from about 2 weeks after transplanting, check the undersides of leaves and the shoot tips — where these pests live — across a sample of plants all over the field.

Aphids and thrips: aphids cluster as soft green or black dots; thrips are like tiny moving splinters in the growing tips, leaving silvery, scratchy streaks with tiny black specks of dung. Both spread viruses.

Broad mite: far too small to see, but the new leaves at the shoot tips curl downward, harden, and go bronze and shiny, and the growing point looks distorted, almost corky. It looks like a virus but it is mites.

Bacterial spot: look for small dark, greasy, water-soaked spots on the leaves that turn brown with a yellow edge and may drop out as shot-holes; it is worse in warm, wet weather.

Remember virus prevention is clean plants and pulling out sick ones — not spraying. If you must spray a pest, measure the dose with the cap, cover skin, eyes and nose, spray in the cool with the wind behind you, off food, and wait the label's days before picking — the pre-harvest interval, the number of days between spraying and safe harvest.

Start about 2 weeks after transplanting, then repeat every 2 weeks through early growth.

Band each dose — lay it in a line a hand's width (about 10 cm) to the side of the plants, not on top of them — following the amount your recommendation gives. Split it; never put the season's nitrogen on in one go.

Apply onto moist soil (after watering or light rain) and cover it or water it in, so it feeds the roots instead of gassing off into the air.

Keep the fertiliser off wet leaves (it scorches them) and away from food, water and children. Wash your hands afterwards.

Weed from about 2 weeks after transplanting, while the weeds are still small and you can walk the rows easily.

Hoe shallowly — pepper roots run near the surface, so deep hoeing close to the plants cuts them.

After weeding, lay a mulch of dry grass or leaves around the plants. Mulch smothers new weeds and, above all, keeps the soil evenly moist so the fruit tips get steady calcium.

Keep the mulch a finger-joint's width back from the stems (a few centimetres) — piled against the stem it holds damp and invites rot.

Water every 3–5 days, keeping the soil moist to root depth without ever waterlogging it.

Aim for a comfortable middle — let the soil use up to about half its water, then refill. Not dust-dry, not soggy, and never a swing from bone-dry to flooded.

Water more often in heat and on sandy soil; check with a finger and water when the top few centimetres are dry.

Keep the beds draining freely — steady moisture, dry feet.

Twice a week, from about 6 weeks after transplanting, check the flowers, shoot tips and young fruit across the field.

Thrips: tap a flower over your open palm — if tiny pale slivers scurry across your hand, that's thrips. On leaves they leave silvery scarring with black specks; they spread viruses, so keep their numbers down.

Fruit borer (bollworm): look for a neat round hole bored into the fruit near the stalk, with droppings at the hole and rot inside. Pick and destroy holed fruit and any caterpillars you find in the flowers.

Pepper viruses: watch for mottled light-and-dark green leaves, puckered or strappy distorted growth, and stunted plants. There is no cure — pull and remove sick plants so aphids and thrips don't carry it on.

Blossom drop: if flowers turn yellow and fall without setting fruit, the cause is usually the weather, not a pest (see the note below). If you must spray a pest, cover skin, eyes and nose, spray in the cool with the wind behind you, off food, and respect the days-to-harvest on the label.

About 6–8 weeks after transplanting, once the plants have been flowering for a couple of weeks, walk the field and pick a sample of plants to check.

On each, count the young fruit that have set and are holding — small firm peppers, past the flower stage, staying on the plant.

A good crop is carrying several holding fruit per plant, with more flowers still coming.

If it fails — few or no fruit have set → the flowers are dropping. Fix the cause: keep the water dead steady, wait out any heat or cold spell (the plant will re-flower when it eases), scout hard for thrips, and ease off any excess nitrogen. Then re-check in a week or two.

Water little and often — every 2–4 days — so the soil stays evenly moist and never swings wet to dry.

Keep the crop on the moist side of comfortable: water again before even a quarter of the soil's moisture is used up.

Keep the mulch topped up to hold that moisture steady between waterings.

Still drain freely — even, steady moisture, never standing water.

First learn to recognise it: a sunken, leathery, brown-to-black patch at the blossom end (the tip) of the fruit — not a pest, and not curable once it is on a fruit.

Run the program from about 6–7 weeks after transplanting, right through fruiting.

The real fix is steady water — calcium only moves to the fruit when moisture is even, so never let the soil swing wet–dry and keep the mulch in place.

Keep calcium in the soil and the pH around 6.0–6.5 so the roots can take it up — apply soil calcium (such as agricultural lime or gypsum) at the amount your recommendation gives, worked into moist soil.

Don't rely on spraying calcium onto the leaves — foliar calcium barely reaches the fruit; even water plus soil calcium is what works.

Twice a week, from about 9 weeks after transplanting, check leaves (both sides), shoot tips and the ripening fruit across the field.

Red spider mite: in hot dry spells look for fine pale speckling on leaves that then go bronze and dry, with fine webbing on the undersides — hold a leaf to the light to see the tiny moving specks.

Powdery mildew: on pepper it shows mostly as white or grey powdery patches on the underside of leaves, with yellow blotches on top; badly hit leaves drop and expose the fruit to sunburn.

Anthracnose: the fruit killer — sunken, dark, circular spots on ripening fruit, often in rings, with a pinkish or black centre. Pick and remove affected fruit; it spreads fast in warm, wet weather.

If you must spray, cover skin, eyes and nose, spray in the cool with the wind behind you, off food, rotate chemical groups, and wait the label's pre-harvest interval (the days between spraying and safe picking) before you harvest.

From about 9–13 weeks after transplanting, feed potassium every 10–14 days through the fruit-fill stage, at the amount your recommendation gives.

Band it in a line a hand's width (about 10 cm) to the side of the plants, on moist soil, and water or cover it in.

Do not surge nitrogen now — late nitrogen grows soft leaf, delays ripening, and worsens blossom-end rot.

Keep fertiliser off wet leaves, off food and water, and away from children — wash your hands afterwards.

Water every 2–4 days to keep the soil evenly moist through the whole fruit-fill stage — the same steady rhythm as at flowering.

Keep a mulch over the beds to buffer the moisture and stop the surface drying and cracking between waterings.

Never let it swing from dry to soaked — that swing is what splits the fruit and rots the tips.

At the same time, never waterlog — soggy ground in warm weather brings on Phytophthora, a rot that wilts and kills whole plants. Steady moisture, free drainage.

Start picking from about 10 weeks after transplanting, then go over the plants once a week for the rest of the season.

For green-mature fruit: pick when the pepper is full-sized, firm, glossy and thick-walled but still green. This gives you more pickings and less risk of loss.

For coloured fruit (yellow or red): leave it on the plant until it colours fully for a higher price — but know it ties up the plant longer and risks more sun and rot in the wait.

Cut each fruit with a short stalk using a clean, sharp knife or secateurs — don't pull, or you tear the brittle branch. (Remember: green, yellow and red are just ripeness stages of the same fruit.)

Pick in the cool of morning or evening, handle only dry fruit (wet fruit rots in the crate), and lay them gently in a shallow container — never tip or drop them.

Get the field heat out fast: move picked fruit into the shade immediately — never let it sit in the sun.

Keep it cool and humid. Peppers hold best at around 7–8 °C in high humidity, staying good for up to 3–5 weeks — but this is a cool store, not a cold one.

Do not chill below about 7 °C — sweet pepper is cold-sensitive, and hard chilling causes pitting (small sunken marks) and decay. This is the opposite of grain: colder is not safer here.

Grade the fruit by size, colour and defects — set aside anything soft, cracked, rotting or sunburned so it doesn't spoil the rest.

Pack in shallow crates, not deep sacks — peppers bruise and puncture easily, and weight from above crushes the fruit below.