How to Grow Banana Peppers

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Adding banana peppers to your home vegetable garden allows you to enjoy these sweet and tangy peppers fresh from the vine. Depending on the variety, these prolific pepper plants produce mildly flavored fruit perfect for snacking, pickling, poppers, or adding a splash of color to your favorite salads.

Banana pepper plants are highly adaptable and relatively easy to cultivate in any small garden plot or container. Here’s a guide on how to best grow banana peppers.

Types of Banana Pepper

• Yellow wax banana pepper—These slender, curved yellow peppers grow 5–6 inches long. They have very thin walls, a light pepper flavor, and just a touch of spice. Pick them young and green for a mild taste, or allow them to ripen fully to yellow for added sweetness.
• Hungarian yellow wax peppers. They bear flattened, tapered fruit around 6 inches in length. Their smoother skin makes them excellent for frying or pickling whole. The flavor is only mildly pungent.
• Hungarian banana peppers are often confused with wax varieties but feature a deep sunset red color when mature. They grow 5–7 inches long and have a medium heat and a sweet, earthy flavor. Use their colorful peppers to add a punch of red to relishes, salads, and charcuterie platters.
• Cubanelle or Italian sweet peppers – Offers a big yield of vivid yellow-green fruit, around 5 inches long and 2 inches wide. With thick, crisp flesh, they are exceptionally sweet and make great stuffing peppers and additions to antipasto.

The variety you select may depend on your planned use and preference for color, flavor and spice level. Most types grow well in home gardens and produce heavy yields under the right conditions.

Optimal Time for Planting Banana Peppers

Banana pepper plants require warm soil and air temperatures to thrive, making timing an important consideration when adding them to your garden. Most gardeners grow banana peppers from transplants started indoors and then set outside after the last expected spring frost. Banana peppers take 100–135 days to reach harvest, depending on variety, so counting backwards from your first fall frost date will give you the best timeframe for transplanting seedlings into the garden.

Plan to transplant banana pepper seedlings outdoors about 1–2 weeks after the average date of your area’s final spring frost, once soil temperatures have warmed to 65°F or higher. Transplanting too early while nights are still cool can stress plants and set back growth.

You can stretch your growing season earlier by using cloches, cold frames, or fabric row covers to protect young plants if cold snaps or frosts threaten after putting seedlings in the ground. Banana pepper roots especially dislike cold, wet soil, so take care not to overwater during cooler early spring weather.

If purchasing plants instead of starting seeds yourself, look for stocky transplants about 5–7 inches tall that have well-established root systems and several sets of mature leaves. This size indicates readiness to grow rapidly when moved into garden beds or containers.

Time your plantings wisely based on frost guides for your climate, and be prepared to implement cold protection measures when garden planting on the earlier side. With a sufficiently long warm season of growth maximized by timely transplant dates, your banana peppers will reward you with prolific fruit.

How to Grow Banana Peppers in Pots?

1. Select a large pot or container at least 12” wide and deep. Banana pepper roots require ample room to develop. Use sturdy plastic, ceramic, wood, or fabric planters with drainage holes.
2. Fill the container with a quality potting mix formulated for vegetables. Add perlite or vermiculite to improve drainage. You can also create your own mix using compost, peat moss, and bark.
3. Fertilize plants every two weeks with a balanced liquid fertilizer made for peppers and tomatoes, or use controlled-release granules. Container plants depend on regular feeding since they lack soil nutrients.
4. Situate potted banana peppers in a sunny outdoor spot protected from heavy winds. Move container plants indoors if temperatures drop below 50°F at night. Peppers grow best with 6+ hours of direct sun.
5. Monitor soil moisture frequently and water container plants often, allowing the soil to slightly dry out between waterings. Banana peppers need consistent moisture to set fruit. Add mulch atop the soil to retain water longer.
6. As plants grow, use tomato cages or plant supports to contain sprawling branches weighted with fruit. Staking helps prevent storm damage as well, since container plants can blow over more easily. Trim away any leaves or stems touching the ground to aid disease prevention.

How Long does Banana Peppers Take to Grow?

From transplanting young seedlings out in the garden, most varieties of banana pepper plants take around 100–135 days until they begin producing harvest-ready fruit for picking. Soil temperature plays an important role in their growth.

Typically though, you can expect small immature green banana peppers to first appear on vigorous plants around 60–80 days after transplanting seedlings provided with warm growing conditions. It then takes additional time for these unripe fruits to size up and fully ripen from green to yellow, red or other shades depending on the variety. Fruits continue developing for another few weeks before reaching peak maturity for fresh eating or processing.

So, while transplant to first tiny fruit may be as quick as 60 days come mid-summer, it’s often another 30–40 days more before bulk harvest kicks into high gear once fruits color up and fill out thicker walls. Exercising patience is rewarded with sweeter, fuller-flavored fruits at maximal size and ripeness for use.

Knowing the timeline involved helps in planning out early seed starting and transplant timing appropriately to achieve fruit ripening before first fall frosts threaten plant health and performance.

How to Prune Banana Peppers

Prune banana pepper plants 2–3 weeks after transplanting seedlings into the garden. Cut each plant back by 1/3 to encourage branching and more fruiting sites.

Remove any branches or suckers that won’t support fruit, so the plant directs energy into the main stems. Pruning also improves air circulation and light penetration.

Throughout the season, prune off any diseased foliage promptly to limit spread. Cut back plants severely after harvest in autumn for overwintering indoors.

Best Time to Harvest

Banana peppers can be picked at multiple stages of development depending on how you plan to use them, but waiting for full maturity ensures the richest flavor. While technically edible at any phase once fruits form, unripe green banana peppers will still taste quite bland and grassy. For the sweetest, most crisp and flavorful texture plus complex fruit sugars, it’s best to harvest most varieties at their fully ripened stage.

This optimal maturity happens anywhere from 90 to 135 days after transplanting when banana peppers turn from green to yellow, orange, red or other finish color characteristic of that variety. The pointed tip may also transition from green to white or brown when truly ripe and ready for eating fresh.

Check your banana pepper fruits often as peak ripeness approaches, as it can happen quickly. Use a gentle twist-and-pull motion to harvest peppers once the color looks fully vibrant. This ensures the stem separates cleanly without damaging plants for follow-up secondary fruiting.

Enjoy premium flavor and sweetness at ripeness peak timing.

Common Issues When Growing Banana Peppers

Even when cared for properly, banana pepper plants can encounter problems that affect health and fruit production. Here are a few issues to keep an eye out for.

Pest Problems

Several common garden pests can attack banana pepper plants and hamper fruit set and quality if not controlled. Be on the lookout for these bug invaders:

• Aphid Infestations. Green peach aphids and other species seek out young shoots and undersides of leaves to feed on sap. Heavy infestations cause curled, stunted leaves and plants to be stressed to the point of declining fruit yields. Check for tiny pear-shaped insects clustered on new growth. Blast away mild cases with water or treat them using insecticidal soaps targeting soft-bodied pests.
• Flea Beetle Invasions. Tiny black flea beetles feast on leaves, leaving shot holes and scars. Heavily damaged leaves wilt in high heat. Use floating row covers as a barrier after transplanting. Apply neem oil or pyrethrin sprays to repel invasive beetles, which can quickly defoliate plants.
• Spider Mite Infections. Nearly microscopic spider mites suck cell contents from the undersides of leaves, which stipple then dry and drop. Fine webbing may cover heavily infested plants. Knock populations down with targeted miticide sprays. Also, predatory mites are released to feast on the tiny pests without harming plants.

FAQ

What is the typical size of mature banana peppers?

The typical size of a mature banana pepper is around 6-8 inches (15-20 cm) long and about 2 inches (5 cm) wide. They are long, tapered peppers that develop from green to yellow to red as they mature. Most varieties of banana peppers will grow to be around this size at maximum maturity.

How much sunlight do banana pepper plants require?

Banana pepper plants require full sun exposure in order to grow properly and set an abundant harvest. They need a minimum of 6 hours of direct sunlight per day, but ideally 8–10 hours.

How often should you water banana peppers?

Banana pepper plants need about 1–2 inches of water per week, provided by rainfall or supplemental irrigation. The soil should be kept evenly moist but not waterlogged.