Peppers for Cold Climates

Bell pepper from the 2012 garden.

Due to Michigan's short growing season, pretty much the only way we can grow peppers here is by sowing seeds indoors and transplant outside after the last frost date, so they can be harvested before the first frost. I use a last frost date of May 20 and first frost of September 25 (based on data for Jackson, MI), which means a window of around 120 days.

This works pretty well for most bell peppers, which will be ripe in 60-90 days (that's days after transplanting outdoors, not days after you initially start the seeds), but some hot peppers can take up to 150 days. Do the math. Even if I took a chance and transplanted a hot pepper on May 15, got lucky with no frost, I'm looking at October 15 for harvest. And I know better than to expect summer to last that long. So I need to be picky about the varieties I select. I look for cold-hardy plant varieties no matter what, since Michigan weather can be so unpredictable (frost in July? not unheard of).

Last year I didn't have much success with peppers. I started seeds indoors from an old pack of Sweet Carnival Mix from Burpee, which I transplanted outside in June, along with a poblano pepper seedling I bought from Lowe's. The bells each produced 2-3 peppers but I only picked about 3 usable ones total, and the poblanos got zapped by the frost before I was able to pick them.

This year I looked at the varieties suggested on the peppers tip sheet suggested by MSU Extension; they are common ones you can get at gardening stores in packets from Burpee, Ferry Morse, etc. Great info there, but as far as pepper varieties I was looking for something a little different (and in a larger quantity than those little packets), so I ordered Cupid (mini bell pepper), Ace (regular bell pepper), and Aji Cristal (hot). I should have started the seeds indoors already, so I'll be doing that as soon as possible, hardening off at the end of May, and transplanting probably at the start of June.