~ SWEET PEPPER Seeds ~
In the UK, you need really early peppers. After searching for many years, we are pleased to offer a range that are very quick to fruit, taste great,and do well in our dodgy summers.
Please order your seeds in time. You really need to plant them by the start of March at the very latest to have any chance of a decent crop.
Sowing Information
IMPORTANT: Our pepper seed is tested and germinates really well, but you must provide heat for them to go.
Peppers are not too hard to grow, but come from a warm climate and so need heat to germinate. We test every single batch using the ISTA standard setup - 30C day & 20C night - and all will germinate well in 16 days if you provide this. At lower temperatures they will take longer or fewer will grow.
Without a heated proagator, do be aware that warmth during the day is not enough; they also mustn't get cold at night - they don’t want to risk germinating if there’s still a chance of a late frost. On a windowsill, (or polytunnel or greenhouse), even if warm during the day, the temperature can fall enough at night to inhibit germination. So take them away to the centre of the room after supper and replace in the morning.
The other danger is cooking them, if using heat mats without a thermostat, or trays with lids, then even a brief period of unexpected full sun can raise the temperature high enough to kill the seeds if there’s not much airflow. If using these then do make sure there is plenty of ventilation.
Once germinated, the seedlings will happily grow on at lower temperatures of 18C-20C , so they don't need to be in the propagator for long.
'Dedo de Mocha' Sweet Ají
A hot pepper without the heat, from pepper expert Jeff Nekola. Ají are a different species: Capsicum baccatum. This is one of the largest-fruited of our Ají peppers, the beautiful fruit are shiny, almost waxy in appearance and glow a deep red when ripe.
Incredibly productive, & a favourite every year, we like it grilled and served with olive oil. Without the heat, subtle undertones of Ají flavour come out, with distinct smokey tastes being the most obvious.
One of the easier of our unusual / rare peppers to grow, though you do need a polytunnel or greenhouse. If you want a challenge - it can be overwintered if you keep it frost-free - we did have one plant that made it to 3 years old and in its last year it made over 270 peppers!
We have had a couple of reports one year of stressed plants making some heat near the seeds. But in normal conditions this should be classed as a sweet pepper.
Very rare, pretty easy to grow. Gently smokey Aji. Not hot - mostly: the very occasional pepper is warm, especially towards the end of the season, or with plants in their second or third year.
18 seed, organic. £
Sweet Chocolate
This beautiful chocolate-brown sweet bell pepper is a favourite of ours. Yet another wonderful variety from the late Prof Meader, who devoted his life to breeding veg suited to the needs of home gardeners in cooler climates.
It looks amazing sliced in salads, as the chocolate skin hides a cherry-red interior, but is also excellent cooked. We love it roasted, which really brings out the delicious sweet flavour. Famous for its earliness and sweetness - the chocolate-coloured skin helps it absorb whatever sunlight there is available.
Beautiful and delicious.
18 seed, organic. £
Napia - EARLY & PROLIFIC
This is another incredibly early red pepper, with pointy red fruit and spirally curled-up tips like a turkish slipper. It was given to us by a Bulgarian student about 20 years ago, & has really good thick, crunchy sweet flesh - really good raw as awell as cooked.
It has always done very well in our trials, consistently coming ready in the earliest group of peppers.
18 seed, organic. £
Lipstick
This is a long standing favourite of ours. Lipstick is an ultra-early sweet pepper bred specifically for cooler climate market gardeners and it does very well in the UK.
We have now reselected the original strain for bigger meatier peppers, and that is the seed we are now offering you - it's really good! The small plants quickly set lots of 4" pointy green fruit which ripen to a truly lipstick-red colour. They're tasty, sweet and delicious raw or cooked.
Pointy, good thick flesh, early to fruit.
14 seed, organic. £
Kaibi Round
We released this in 2009, and it is still the best-flavoured, meatiest pepper that we've got. From the Antonov family farm in central Bulgaria where it was been grown for generations. The original seed was given to us by Mitko Antonov - from that we selected several lines, and from those we have bred this new variety. It's great - the plants are very quickly covered in medium-sized juicy red bells, with very thick crisp flesh, and a particularly satisfying flavour. They are also excellent used green earlier in the season.
Excellent flavour both green early in the season, or left to ripen to red.
18 seed, organic. £
Amy ( Pale Yellow)
A lovely early wax (yellow) pepper, with a blocky-pointed shape, the kind traditionally grown all over central Europe.
This one is from the Czech Republic, and it's very productive with loads of fruit per plant. One of our long-standing favourite varieties, it's great fresh in salads or cooked.
Sweet and productive, pick when young and yellow for an early crop, or leave them to ripen to deep red (it does go red later).
18 seed £
Semaroh
We discovered this lovely sweet pepper in 2010; the plants are compact and it looks great covered in the ripening yellow-orange fruit, which finish up deep red, although they are tasty at all stages.
It is unusual to find an early-fruiting variety of this shape pepper, but Semaroh does well in the UK: the plants are early and productive, with lots of foot-long pointy sweet peppers.
Slice and fry, or char-grill them.
18 seed £
Slovakia
An early-fruiting traditional sweet pepper from Eastern Europe, back in the catalogue after a gap of a few years. The peppers are fat, pale green, pointy fruit that ripen to a really dark red.A big success in our pepper trials but we've not had any seed since 2015 , so we're really pleased to be able to offer it once again.
Pick and use it early green, or wait and pick when red - either way it has a good strong sweet-peppery flavour.
25 seed £
'Orange Horizon' Amazing but LIMITED AVILABILITY
A new orange bell pepper we found in 2021, making thick walled bell peppers 3 to 4 inches in diameter. One of the few orange bells that does well in this country - just superb. The plants are quite short but even so need staking to support the weight of all the peppers!
An early and sweet strain suitable for the UK; not very seedy so only a few packets each year.
16 seed £
Zitava Sweet Paprika - AMAZING FLAVOUR
This is so delicious. It's early, intensely dark red, with a really rich flavour. Originally a paprika pepper - to dry and grind to make your own sweet paprika powder – but we find it is absolutely delicious just roasted whole.
It makes large numbers of dark red peppers about 4 inches long, their walls are quite thin to aid with drying. Quite delicious roasted on a BBQ grill and munched out of hand.
Not at all hot - this is a sweet paprika type. Great to add colour and flavour to your cooking.
20 seed £
Sweet Spirals - FANTASTIC
This was a great find in our pepper trials last year, it's incredibly sweet and flavoursome. The fruit are long (about 7 inches) & twisted into a spiral, and really sweet. It starts out very light green , & ripens to red. A very, very productive variety, pick at any stage - either green or red - and enjoy chopped in salads or equally well cooked. It is also a great raw as a snack or lunchbox pepper - we find ourselves munching on them whole in the office whenever we have some in from the field!
Delicious Snack or Cooking Pepper. New seed, but some are dormant: sow 2 seed per pot - we have put in extras to allow for this.
16 seed, organic. £
Saving Sweet Pepper Seed:
Peppers (both hot and sweet) do cross very easily,
so if you want to save seed you need to either grow only one variety,
or keep the insects out. Either use a net cage, or even easier, bag individual flowers.
You really do need to do this! Any crosses between the sweet peppers and chillies will be hot the first year, then all mixed up thereafter . . .
However, if the plants were isolated, the seed-saving bit is really pretty easy. Let the pepper get to its final ripe colour (which may not be what you expect!), cut it open, and flick out the seeds.
Leave them to air dry, and then dry them properly so they don't die in storage. That's it!
