Peter Piper picked a peck of these beauties

[pow wow]

Has anybody tried the purple bell peppers. Thought I'd give them a go this year. Looking good but not sure how large they get or when to pick them.

[Lindsaylew82]

I've grown the before, mine stayed purple for a bit, then turned green, then red. They'll get a little bigger in my garden than that before losing their color.

I'm not a HUGE fan of green peppers, so I stopped growing the ones that don't ripen to color. Red is my favorite, and then yellow is my husbands favorite! 3 years ago, I grew 32 varieties of sweet and hot peppers. ( My local greenhouse is very friendly, and gave me the plants as long as he could come take pictures. He's also a pepper and tomato enthusiast! Super awesome business, too. Stays organic. If you want I'll pm you the link.) It was fun seeing all the sweet pepper varieties! My favorites were the white bells! They were very neat! I learned a lot that season about how they grow, and what does well in my climate!

[pow wow]

Thanks Lindsaylew82, I would appreciate the link. Should I pick these purples before they start turning green?

[Lindsaylew82]

When you pick them is totally up to you! It just depends on if you like immature green bells, or mature bells. I'll pm you the link. He ships plants, too!

[Ohio Tiller]

Mine are staying small this year and I don't know why?

[applestar]

Can we use this thread to show off our pepper harvests?
(I'll split this off if there are objections)

I've been harvesting from the overwintered Aji Hot Lemon aka Lemon Drop for a while now, and picking some of the jalapeños green. Today was no exception. I picked green peppers from some of the plants that are still small and probably couldn't/shouldn't support many ripening peppers.

Today's pepper harvest:

[pow wow]

I have no objection applestar. Do you dry your hot peppers? I tried it once in dehydrator and the peppers lost all their fire for some reason.

[applestar]

I have slow dried some In the oven. This year, I want to try making something like smoked paprika if I can. But I don't have the fancy Excalibur dehydrator, just a Nesco/American Harvestor, so we shall see.

I freeze a lot of them to pull out, chop and add, and I have made pickled peppers ( ) and pepper jellies.

[Lindsaylew82]

Mmmmmmmmmmmm... Pepper jelly!

My big crops don't come in until the fall! Then (hopefully) I'll be bragging with pictures of clothes baskets full of peppers!