How to grow bell peppers from seeds in a pot or containers at home may initially look intimidating and overly complicated. But is this the case? As I found out in my own first attempt here, the whole process is super simple and utterly straightforward. I put my neck on the block anyone can do it. In this tutorial, I document the exact steps that I took growing bell peppers in pots at home. If you are new to this, simply follow these exact steps taken here and enjoy your own home-grown bell peppers in no time.
Also known by their botanical name Capsicum annuum, bell peppers can be grown from already existing seedlings. This is to say, you could buy already germinated plant from your local nursery or farmers market, whatever the case may be. Bell peppers can also be grown from scratch using seeds obtained from bell pepper scraps from your kitchen. In this tutorial I will be showing you the latter approach whereby you start your grow journey from seeds. This is more exciting, in my opinion, and offers the full experience. Let’s do it.
Stage 1 – Preparing your Bell Pepper Seeds
If you are going to start everything from scratch as I did here, you need to get some seeds from your kitchen bell peppers. By kitchen bell peppers I mean from those peppers that you use during meal preps. So these could be scraps or a dedicated bell pepper that you cut up for this purpose and extract its seeds.
Once extracted the seeds will need to be dried out in the sun. This is a short process taking a few days to accomplish especially if you have some plenty sunshine to work with. Else place them in the oven (or some some of drier) at low heat to get them to dry (without cooking them).
Shown above is how the dried bell pepper seeds will look after its all said and done and the process is completed. As a matter of routine, I recommend collecting your seeds overtime from your regular kitchen bell peppers when cooking. After you dry them, you may then store them in a jar for future use on the go.
Stage 2 – Prepare your Bell Pepper Seedling Tray
I used a single seed tray as shown here. It has some holes beneath to prevent water logging once the seeds are planted and watered. This tray has four sections. Although I used a tray here, any container should work for planting the seeds. It need not be a tray such as I have here. If you are interested in the dimensions of the tray I used here: 20 cm (L) x 14 cm (W) x 5 cm deep.
Next, I got some soil which I simply scooped from my garden and filled each of the four tray sections. I then planted two bell pepper seeds in each section such that I would have 8 seedlings once germinated. I watered the tray and covered the top of tray with a board and set aside for a few days in a shade and note, not in direct sunlight.
Within several days I witnessed the majestic germination of the seeds. Also note that I did not water the tray since the initial watering that I did at planting stage. If you find the soil in the tray drying up due to your prevailing weather/climatic conditions go ahead and lightly water your tray. It’s okay.
A few more days after germination – about two days later – the seedlings are making tremendous progress with an obvious 100% germination rate (thus 8 seedlings as expected). At this stage, watering is done once per day, but again should be as often as required depending on your conditions. The tray is still sitting in the shade out of direct sunlight.
Stage 3 – Transplant your Bell Peppers to Grow in a Pot
So far it has been a good run. The bell pepper seedlings are ready for a transfer to a pot or container. In this case I am using a bucket. This is the same bucket I used for bucket potatoes here. It fits the bill thanks to its suitable depth. The bucket dimensions are 30 cm across and 34 cm deep. Add nutrient rich soil to the bucket and the bell peppers will do so well.
I planted two of the seedlings in this bucket and put the remaining six into other additional buckets. In this tutorial I am focusing on this particular container to the end. This image is of the bell peppers at about 5 to 7 days after being planted in the pot.
I started off by watering the pot every day and then moved to watering every other day. I have come across people asking how to make peppers grow faster. In my experience, consistent watering of the peppers encourages apparent progress of the plant. This is also the case when the bell peppers start showing up. They tend to grow rapidly with a good enough supply of water, again in my experience.
Stage 4 – Bell Peppers Plant starts Flowering
BELL PEPPER FLOWER
Once you have your bell pepper plant going in the pot or container, you can expect flowering to occur. Although a function of patience, this signifies the “fruiting” on your plant. The flower will fall off exposing the rapidly bulging pepper. At this stage it is green in color and there is no telling what color it’s going to be finally. Continue watering the plant at least every other day.
Stage 5 – Bell Peppers Plant start Growing Peppers
From the flowering it’s all systems go. From here on, the bell peppers will show remarkable growth. Just like mushroom, they seem to be enlarging in size on a daily basis. They are just nor ready yet. Let them keep going until they literally begin to show their true colors. This is all happening within 6 weeks from the transfer from seedlings tray to the pot or container.
Stage 6 – Bell Peppers Mature and start changing Color
Let alone, only taking care to weed and water, the bell peppers finally reach maturity. At this point a great and amazing work of nature also kicks-in. In my case, I began noticing a change in color of one of the green peppers first as shown here. So the stages in color change are green, yellow and then red just like traffic lights in most cities around the world.
This means if you delay harvest when the mature bell pepper is green, it will first turn yellow and then red. This these are the three stages that bell peppers will go through. In many cases the yellow and red bell peppers cost more because the delay in harvest which naturally calls for more resources for the farmer.
In my experience, green bell peppers tend to go down well when eaten raw while yellow and red tend to release their natural sweetness when roasted or used in a stir-fry.
Conclusion
How to grow bell peppers from seed in a pot is so easy to do. Above all it is fun. The best part is once you have your bell pepper tree going and established it will keep producing bell peppers for sometime. The life span of a bell pepper plant can ran into years if the plant is kept healthy and well pruned. So your little investment can give you ongoing returns in a bumper fashion especially if you maintain several plants.
Summary of how to grow Bell Peppers from seeds in a pot
Here is a to-the-point summary of how to grow bell peppers from seeds in a pot. Refer to my step-by-step tutorial with pictures for detail.
- Get dried bell pepper seeds, from kitchen scraps or seed store.
- Get a seedling growing tray or container and plant the bell pepper seeds.
- Transplant your grown seedlings to a pot filled with nutrient rich soil.
- After a few weeks you will see your bell pepper plant begin flowering.
- Bell peppers will emerge from the flowers and start growing rapidly. Keep watering.
- Your mature bell peppers will start off green, if left a few more weeks will turn yellow and then finally red.
- Harvest and enjoy your peppers at any of these 3 stages. One tree does indeed produce rainbow peppers!
Become a greens guru!
