New and Old Friends - Do You Grow Hybrid Bell Peppers

[Paulf]

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love to see some of those homemade racks for split 55s. Also what do you put in them. And how do you water them?

My peppers do well in ground or box bed but always looking for a better way.
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Here are some photos of our raised beds...I had a bunch of old lumber from a porch remodel but you get the idea. The raised beds are my wife's and she waters everything with a garden hose when it is dry, otherwise we rely on rain. We are still harvesting peppers from the tubs while the in-ground peppers were pulled a couple weeks ago.

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[Mark_Thompson]

@rossomendblot Anytime you want to try an envelope of US seeds and see if they get through I’m happy to help.

[greenthumbomaha]

I've been going in circles checking for Black Friday "free shipping" seed deals. I'm trying to use my old OP seeds as a priority, but the hybrid pepper stash is thin. I freeze peppers fpr year round use. I lost alot of peppers when the power lines went down last summer.

I could not find any reviews of the orange "Goliath"
https://seedsnsuch.com/products/goliath ... pper-seeds

Harris Seeds has free shipping thru Cyber Monday no minimum purchase. If you are getting 16 great peppers from a seed costing $1/per, totally worth it. That is a big "IF' when you need to buy in $19 or $50 quantities for trialing as a small grower.
https://www.harrisseeds.com/products/13 ... 9416897608
https://www.harrisseeds.com/products/12 ... 8919317521

Anyone hear of either of these or find any deals?

- Lisa

[habitat-gardener]

I've been going in circles checking for Black Friday "free shipping" seed deals.

Goliath Sweet Orange Hybrid Bell Pepper is 3.99 at SeedsNSuch (15-20 seeds), with free shipping (and 25% off if the order is over $25). This offer is valid from 11/27/24 to 12/4/24 at 11:59 PM EST. They also have an Orange Bell Pepper (OP?). If you get on their mailing list, you'll get advance notice of the sales. I've found this is a good vendor for hybrids. Usually they offer free shipping (save $6) OR a discount, but not both.

I ordered one packet of seeds at Eden Brothers last year, and was not charged for shipping iirc. It was a last-minute order for seed that I was ordering for our master gardener seedling sale, and this was the only place that had the variety I was looking for, so I was prepared to pay the shipping fee and was surprised!

In March and April, I bought some much-reduced hybrids from Harris Seeds that I would not otherwise have tried because the normal price is so high. (For instance, $2-3 for a pack of seeds that's usually $7-15.) So that would be another place to get on the mailing list. I had already started almost all my summer vegetables by then. The only one I grew this year was Butterkin winter squash, which tasted pretty good but was less productive than my other two winter squashes this year.

[greenthumbomaha]

Thanks for responding. Like yourself, habitat-gardener, I was preoccupied starting seeds during the spring seed starting frenzy. Looking back, I wish I would have ordered from Harris Seeds for future use given that robust discount. I have found their seeds last for several years.

Seeds N Such seems to have rebranded " Chardonnay" pepper to their "Goliath Goldrush Hybrid Pepper Seeds" series, which they disclosed in ther description. I checked the other colors of their "Goliath" and it appears they have thought of a new way to market an exisitng seed.

I've not been impressed with with the size or producivity of Orange Sun , so I guess I'll give Goliath a try.

I grew OP Big Red and Cal Wonder, but the hybrids produced significantly better. I believe I sent Big Red in to the MMMM swap last year. If anyone grew it out, please share your results, or direct me to your review. The seed sellers and some growers were very enthuastic about it. Maybe it was just me.

- Lisa

[habitat-gardener]

…Seeds N Such seems to have rebranded " Chardonnay" pepper to their "Goliath Goldrush Hybrid Pepper Seeds" series, which they disclosed in ther description. I checked the other colors of their "Goliath" and it appears they have thought of a new way to market an exisitng seed.
…

I didn’t notice that!! So I looked up Oreny (the orange “Goliath”) and one site said low productivity in the description. I guess I’ll find out! Almost every pepper has been doing well in my scorching hot summers!

[karstopography]

The only Bell pepper I still currently have in the garden is one Sweet Bella plant. Sweet Bella is a hybrid. It also seems very reluctant to ripen to red. That’s fine, I like them green, but of all my bell peppers I have grown it might have been the slowest to color up. Better Bell 2 and Red Standard 4 all turn green to red more rapidly than Sweet Bella. I could have left one Red Standard 4 and Better Belle 2 going, but decided they were in the way of other cool season crops I wished to plant.

Hybrid Bell peppers generally make it through, with modest inputs of care and feeding, the entire spring, summer and fall here. The prettiest peppers are in the late spring early summer, then the numbers and size of the peppers tend to shrink in the middle of summer and then recover in the fall, especially the numbers, but not on the looks, at least not all the way to the more perfect spring fruit levels. I’ve picked a few 1/2-3/4 sized imperfectly shaped Sweet Bella peppers recently and there’s three more still on the plant. One pepper looks to be browning up a bit, but it will stay that way for days and days. Imperfect looking bell peppers are still very useful in recipes, but maybe not at a market or as a centerpiece. One good thing about this late in the season is sunscald isn’t an issue.

I’ve been following this thread to hopefully to get some insight into the best hybrid bell pepper varieties to grow. I might stick with what hybrid varieties of starter bells the garden centers stock in the spring unless something jumps out as far superior to those, but nothing has yet. I can usually get starter plants for around $2 each and with the price of the fancy, latest and greatest hybrid bell pepper seeds I’m better off staying with what I have been doing, thaf is unless there’s some hybrid bell out there that’s far and away superior.