My bell pepper plants are setting fruit!

[presse55]

Hello from Montreal

My question is:
How long after bell pepper fruit buds appear are they generally mature and ready to be harvested?

I started 9 plants outdoors in a hydroponic grow bed on May 1st. As of July 15th (10 weeks after germination), they are about 2 feet tall, all are flowering, and all are showing tiny peppers beginning to grow.

Check them out here - only flowers can be seen - but a couple days later several small fruit are visible!
Leaves are droopy - we are in the middle of a sweltering heat wave.
https://youtu.be/1znsCEtBGqY

It must be beginner's luck, because I thought bell peppers were difficult to grow and harvest fruit from!

I'm hoping we'll get another 6 weeks of relatively warm weather up here - averaging in the 70's throughout that period. Will my bell peppers mature in that time?

Ron

[rainbowgardener]

No, I don't think peppers are hard to grow or get a crop from, just slow. You have 10 weeks into it already. Different varieties are different and conditions make a difference. I don't know anything about hydro or whether that affects the timetable.

But very roughly, I think it generally takes about 8 weeks from seed to blossom and another 8 weeks from blossom to full sized fruit. Plus more if you want the fruit to turn from green to red. So you should make it, but just, not leaving you time to keep harvesting from it much. The good part about growing peppers is that once they start, they keep on coming.

Next time start some indoors under lights. I start mine around the end of Jan and by the time I can put them in the ground, they are already blooming. Incidentally since you are growing them outdoors, why did you do it by hydro?

[sheeshshe]

I'm with you. Mine just started setting fruit last week or the week before. it is loaded with blossoms, but I don't know what I'll end up with in the end. I suppose it all depends on how the fall goes!

[presse55]

Thank you for your replies.

I decided to go hydroponic because of space limitations, I only had a small warm sunny location available, and the soil there is basically clay.

Next year I will definitely start my seeds earlier; I have a good fluorescent lighting system that will come in handy.

I keep reading that if you can overwinter your plants, that the 2nd year production can be quite impressive. So now I'm wondering if there's any easy way to keep these plants 'alive' through the winter in my basement ... Can I contemplate carting the whole grow bed indoors (hydroton pebbles & plants included)?

Ron

[Francis Barnswallow]

My experience with growing peppers is that they take forever to grow from planting the seed to full mature producing plant. For example, I'm just now getting my first bell peppers (about the size of baseballs) and I planted them as seeds back in February.