When to sow chili peppers?
- Botanical name
- Capsicum annuum
- Family
- Solanaceae
Chili peppers are sown indoors from February to March, 1 cm deep. They germinate in 15 to 20 days. They are harvested from August to October.
Chili peppers are annual plants. The edible part is the fruit.
Chili peppers through the year
- indoor sowing
- transplanting
- harvest
In short
The last frost is not on the same day everywhere, so the recorded weeks are a guide and not a date.
Growing conditions
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
Colorado potato beetle
pest- Signs
- Adult beetles and reddish larvae eat the leaves until nothing is left of the plant but bare stems. Once the foliage runs out they start on the stems as well. The yellow eggs sit in tight clusters on the underside of the leaves.
- Prevention
- Keep to a rotation, because the beetle overwinters in the soil exactly where the attacked crop stood. Lay a thick straw mulch, which makes its way to the plants harder and draws in predators. Look for the egg clusters early, while there are few of them.
- What to do
- Collect and destroy beetles, larvae and egg clusters, often and early in the season. Put the fleece on before the beetles come out of the soil. The aubergine is the beetle's favourite host and can be planted as a trap crop.
European corn borer
pest- Signs
- Small entry holes in the stem with borings that look like sawdust. Above them the foliage wilts or the stem snaps. The caterpillar bores in beside the stalk and eats out the seed core.
- Prevention
- In autumn remove or shred the stems in which the caterpillars overwinter: cut them off at ground level and mulch them, plough them in or carry them off the bed. This is the strongest measure, because it takes the pest's winter quarters away.
- What to do
- Split the attacked stem below the entry hole and destroy the caterpillar. On a small bed this is workable and more precise than spraying, which does not reach a caterpillar inside a stem anyway.
Flea beetles
pest- Signs
- The leaves are riddled with small round holes, as if somebody had peppered them with shot. Touched, the beetles jump. Young plants with such leaves stall or die, older ones grow through the damage.
- Prevention
- Clear away the plant debris in which the beetles overwinter. Cover the bed with fleece right after sowing or planting and leave it until the plants are strong. Keep the soil moist, because a dry warm spring is the worst case.
- What to do
- Pin fleece down at the edges, which is the main measure. In autumn or early spring loosen the top layer of soil to cut down the number of overwintering beetles.
Keep track of your plants with Tendask
Log the task and set a reminder for the next one. Every plant keeps its own history, so there is nothing to guess at.
Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Solanaceae).
Sources about the plant: Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Clemson Cooperative Extension, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, KGZS Zavod Ljubljana, KGZS Zavod Nova Gorica, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, Semenarna Ljubljana, Smernice za strokovno utemeljeno gnojenje (Mihelič et al., MKGP 2011), Utah State University Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 26 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: EPPO Global Database, University of Maryland Extension.