I put in 28 sweet peppers in my front garden bed. Varieties include Jimmy Nardellos, Sweet Bell Peppers, Tolli's Sweet Peppers, and Purple Beauties.

They kind of laid down on me until the temperature warmed up a bit here in zone 6. My front bed gets about 6 hours of direct sunlight each day. The bed they're in is good soil, protected by a layer of wood mulch. When it gets dry I hit them with rain water and occasional fertilizing.

What's odd is there are a huge variety of pepper plant development from small runts, though medium [ some healthy, some scrawny, some yellow ], through pretty big healthy ones.

For comparison, my tomatoes in the same bet are a variety of breeds [ black cherry, sweet million cherry, juliet cherry, and sweet 100s, and lucky tiger cherry ] and those plants are pretty similar in size and health to each other.

Anyone else get fairly large differences in pepper development, even if the plants are put in at similar times and in virtually identical conditions? This is the first year I've done a whole bunch like this.

Mine are like that. All put in at the same time. One is under a foot tall (though it did get eaten a bit when little) and one is over 3 feet tall with peppers over an inch long already. I've got 3 different varieties so that plays a part. But even ones that are the same variety are growing differently. A nice hot stretch with consistent watering and fertilizing has started leveling things out.
July 3rd




June 30th


I couldn't find any older pictures but there was a major difference between the plants mid June.

I guess pepper plant variation in maturity speed and health just naturally vary from seed to seed, even from peppers from the same seed packets grown in the same conditions.

I plan on marking the plants that got big quickest and healthiest, so I can harvest seeds from those specific ones to use for seed stock next year, as those seem best suited to the environment.

[ I'm zone 6, have amended soil epsom salts, dolomite lime [ for calcium, magnesium, and sulfur ] and standard general miracle grow type NPK fertilizer. I also use wood mulch to help retain soil moisture, keep plant roots cool and weeds down, and encourage the earthworms to hang around.