November is National Pepper Month, which is great, but it seems a little … late in the year to be celebrating it, right? It’s not, because they can grow over a vast amount of time each growing season, as long as they have the proper conditions.
These fruits – yes, they’re fruits, just like tomatoes – can be sweet, spicy, cool and crunchy. There’s also a lot more to peppers than you may realize. They’re part of the Capsicum genus, of which there are more than 20 species. More fun trivia for you: that genus name comes from the Latin word capsa (box) and the Greek word kapto (to gulp). The name pepper, however, comes from the similarity of certain varieties to the “heat” of black pepper (and no, they’re not related. I checked. That question has been on my mind since I was a little kid!). Varieties have been cultivated as far back at 3000 BCE in Central America.
The fruit (want to get even weirder? They’re technically berries in the botanical sense) of Capsicum plants have a variety of names depending on where they are and what type they are. The hotter varieties are often called chili peppers. The large, boxy, mild form is called the bell pepper or by its color (green pepper, red bell pepper, etc.) in North and America and South Africa, sweet pepper in the UK, Ireland and Malaysia and just capsicum in Australia, India, New Zealand and Singapore. Paprika is a powdered spice made of dried Capsicum, although in Hungary and Germany that’s what they call the entire fruit as well. They can be used in cooking both whole and powdered.
Ideal growing conditions for peppers include a sunny position with warm, loamy, moist soil, ideally 70º to 84º F). Extremely moist soils can cause seedlings to “damp-off” and reduce germination. The plants will tolerate (but are not big fans of) temperatures as low as 54º – they are sensitive to cold. For flowering, Capsicum is not dependent on a certain amount of daylight and its flowers can self-pollinate. However, at the other end of the temperature spectrum, at 91º to 100º pollen loses its viability, and flowers are much less likely to pollinate successfully.
If you want to start growing early in the year (or later in the summer), low tunnels and greenhouses are the way to go. Peppers take between 60 and 90 days on average to ripen, so just make sure you plan accordingly. Bell peppers are usually green, yellow, orange and red, but other colors include brown, white, lavender and dark purple, depending on the variety. They can make colorful and tasty additions to many of your meals and they’re good sources of vitamin C (among other vitamins). Enjoy your month, Capsicum!
