Pick a pepper in your garden this summer

13_thumb_pepper_illustration.JPGView full sizeILLUSTRATION BY KENNETH HARRISON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
While mid-March is a great time to begin planting many warm-season vegetables, such as tomatoes, snap beans, squash, sweet corn and cucumbers, a backyard Louisiana garden just wouldn't be complete without a few pepper plants, hot and sweet.

Peppers can be grown all over the country, but they do particularly well in areas like ours, with a long, warm growing season.

The pepper is native to the tropics of Central and South America and has probably been cultivated for thousands of years. Archaeologists exploring prehistoric caves in Peru have found remains of pepper seeds, and evidence of cultivated peppers has been found in a number of ancient sites.

When Columbus reached the Caribbean, the taste of a vegetable grown by the native population reminded him of the familiar black pepper, so he called the new plant pepper (pimienta in Spanish) as we do today.

Columbus, however, was no botanist. He was wrong. The plant was not even related to black pepper, Piper nigrum, but was an entirely different plant, Capsicum annuum. Most of the peppers we grow belong to the latter species.

From their American origins, peppers were spread to Europe, Africa, India and Asia, and became an important part of many regional cuisines. They are a member of the Solanaceae (or Nightshade) family, which makes them relatives of the tomato, potato, tobacco, eggplant and petunia.

The fruit of pepper plants may be sweet, mild, hot or very hot. The degree of heat is related to the amount of capsaicin present. This chemical is concentrated in the pepper pod where the seeds are attached and in the veins of the inner wall. Peppers are at the peak of their hotness when fully ripe, and are usually five times hotter when they are mature than while green.

Based on the amount of capsaicin they generally contain, pepper varieties can be classified as sweet, mild, hot and very hot. Remember, you cannot always identify a hot pepper by its shape or color. Here are some popular peppers and their relative degree of heat:

Sweet: Sweet Bell peppers, Pimento, Sweet Banana and Gypsy.

Mild: Mexi-Bell, Cherry, NuMex Big Jim, Anaheim, Ancho, Pasilla, Espanola and Cascabell.

Hot: Jalapeno, Mirasol, Hungarian Wax (Hot Banana), Serrano, Cayenne and Tabasco.

Very hot: Chiltepin (Birds-eye), Thai, Habanero, Scotch Bonnet.

Sweet bell peppers are commonly planted in the home garden. They are blocky in shape, with three or four lobes on the bottom of the pepper. Most bell peppers are green when unripe, but some varieties are purple, lavender or chocolate brown.

When bell peppers ripen, they may turn red, yellow or orange (yes, red, yellow and orange bell peppers are simply green bell peppers that have been allowed to ripen.)

Excellent non-hybrid bell-pepper varieties include Jupiter and Capistrano. Hybrid bell peppers, such as the recommended Camelot and Aristotle varieties, generally produce bigger peppers on a more vigorous plant.

Planting peppers

Choose a sunny area, as peppers need full sun to blossom and set fruit. Also, try to select a spot protected from the wind, since pepper plants have shallow root systems and brittle branches. In the mid- to late summer, stakes or wire cages will help keep the plants upright as they grow larger.

Plant pepper transplants in well-drained beds enriched by compost and fertilizer. Spread 2 to 4 inches of compost over the planting area, sprinkle with fertilizer and work it in with a shovel or tiller.

Use a general-purpose fertilizer, commercial or organic, following label directions. A soil test would help you determine what analysis fertilizer would be best for your soil. There is no one fertilizer that will lead to the best results.

Ground control

Space peppers 1 1/2 to 2 feet apart. Depending on the type, most peppers grow about 2 feet tall. A half dozen plants, four sweet, one mild and one hot, should provide a family with a summer-long crop of peppers.

Production of bell peppers often drops off in the hottest part of the summer, but will pick back up as weather cools in September. Excellent summer production of sweet peppers can be obtained from Gypsy and Sweet Banana. Most mild to very hot peppers produce well through the summer.

Mulch plants to control weeds and conserve moisture. Leaves, pine straw or dried grass clippings work fine.

In some commercial fields, plastic mulch is used and sprayed with silver or bright aluminum paint before transplanting. The reflected light from the painted surface helps to repel aphids, small insects that feed on peppers and spread virus diseases. The reflected light also seems to stimulate plant growth. Wide, heavy-duty aluminum foil could be used in a small home garden.

Picking peppers

Peppers can be harvested at any stage of development. Bell types are usually harvested when firm, full size but still green. They may also be harvested when mature and turning red, orange or yellow, depending on variety.

With other types of peppers, harvest time varies. Jalapenos are generally harvested green, while cayenne peppers are harvested mature red.

It is largely up to you to decide at what stage you want to pick them. When harvesting, hold the branch and snap or cut the peppers off carefully. Pepper plants are brittle and the branches break easily. I like to use small garden scissors.


What type of fertilizer (8-8-8, 27-0-12, ?) and schedule do I use for St. Augustinegrass?

Joan Grant

The lawn fertilizer you use depends on the native fertility of your soil. We fertilize to supplement the mineral nutrients already in the soil to make sure that there is enough for the grass to grow faster, thicker, darker green, etc. The most important nutrient is nitrogen (the first number in the fertilizer analysis). Use a fertilizer rich in nitrogen for fertilizing lawns during the growing season. If enough of the other two mineral nutrients -- phosphorus, the second number, and potassium, the third number -- is already present, adding more will not benefit the grass. If your soil is medium to very high in phosphorus (common on the south shore), then using the lawn fertilizer high in nitrogen but low in phosphorous, such as 27-0-12, would be fine. If your soil is very low to low in phosphorus (common on the north shore), using 8-8-8 or lawn fertilizers containing phosphorous would be better. There is still time to have your soil tested through your parish LSU AgCenter Extension office. Or, talk to your parish LSU AgCenter agent, who should be familiar with typical nutrient levels of soils in your area. If weeds are an issue, use a weed killer-fertilizer combination for your first fertilizer application, which should come in early April. Fertilize again in early to mid-June, and make a final application in early to mid-August if you want to push the grass to the maximum. Generally, an application in April and a second in July is enough.

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A few years ago, you wrote an article regarding Asiatic jasmine ground cover and recommended cutting it back drastically to bring about better new growth. I have this ground cover, and it seems to me that the time of year to cut it back could be right about now.

Andrew Manor

Now would be an excellent time to trim back your Asiatic jasmine. This running vine used as a ground cover generally looks best when kept to a thickness of about 4 inches deep. This may require trimming in spring, and then again in summer. Don't forget to trim the edges periodically to keep them looking neat as well.

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I live in Mandeville. I have a centipede lawn. It is every uneven. When is the best time to add topsoil?


Add fill over the lawn in May through August, when the grass is in active growth, and you are mowing regularly. The grass needs to be in active growth because it is important for it to grow up through the fill as quickly as possible. Use a sandy soil low in organic matter for filling. Centipede grass will not reliably grow through more than about 2 inches. Where you have to fill deeper than that to level the lawn, you may need to replace the grass in those spots.

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Dan Gill is extension horticulturist with the LSU Ag Center.

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