I was shopping for a Laurel in the plant shopping center at the beginning of the spring and some old ladies started to ask about cherry tomatoes and what they can plant in containers in their apartments, so I tried to help them choose what is easier, what is pretty enough, smells good and can be planted in containers and indoors.
Well, this is a question to many people who love plants and greens just like me, but don’t know what they can plant in their apartments or balconies wihtout much need to light and soil.
I always have an answer to this question, it is simply: plant pepper!
Pepper plants have some characteristics which make them perfect for indoor and containers.
There is a huge variety of peppers you can grow at home. It doesn’t need much sun light, so you can plant it in small containers and put them behind the windows. I normally use 8 liter containers and although I put them in my balcony, they are still under a shade (preventing summer heat). The leaves of pepper, are shiny and in some varieties they are very wide, which makes them perfect add on to house greens, and it is a really clean plant.
The blooms on pepper which are in most varieties small white flowers, add to to its value, and then comes the smell. I really like the smell of fresh peppers, specially the mild smell of bell peppers which make you feel so fresh and relaxed. and when the peppers are hanging finally, it is one of the best add-ons to your cooking food, and to be honest, I love to use vegetables grown on my small containers instead of those somehow artificial crops bought from store, which have no smell and no taste at all, and I don’t know with what kind of water and soil they are grown.
Anyway, so the process is easy, in a suitable season get some 8 liters containers, stuff hem with soil, and put a seed or 2 half a centimeter in the soil and spray some water over it for a few days. I prefer light container soil I buy from plant center near me, for about 1.5 USD a 10 kg pack. The prices may vary in your place and your country, I am shopping in Tehran and right from the center.
If you want to plant indoors, the season doesn’t matter much, just keep the temperature so plant doesn’t freeze in winters. 15 degrees centigrade to 20 makes a perfect conditions I guess. If you don’t have enough light, put them under fluorescent lamps.
Remember, Pepper seeds are very slow, so you have to be patient. It normally takes more than 12 days before you see any sign of the plant and it may take even more, so just keep the soil moist and let the nature do the rest for you.
Now how to select seeds or how to find the seeds yourself? You can either buy from shops, or you can use the available seeds in the peppers you see.
Shopping, everybody knows how, ask your local stores, or simply type “pepper seed” in google and you will find a thousand sellers, I have used seedfest.co.uk and I guess north Americans are also easy with burpee.com.
But if you prefer not to buy seeds, it is still easy. Find a perfect pepper of any kind you like to grow, preferrable not a hybrid type (hybrid seeds don’t grow exactly like their mothers, and they don’t smell or taste like those we like, and market is filled with them). The pepper you want to use must be fully grown, I mean it must be colored other than green for most species. If you use seed from a red pepper (which is still green), then the seeds are not grown enough.
So select the perfect pepper, open it and use seeds. put up to 3 seeds in the container and cover it with soil, and if more than one came out, trim the weaker ones.
Be careful with hot chilli peppers, Habanero and every other kind of hot pepper. When these grow, they start getting very hot and even the smell might be hot, so keep the kids away from them.
Peppers don’t need much attention as I said before, if you wanted to give them some food, after a month give them a tiny bit of an slow release fertilizer like green KRISTALLON dissolved in water and that’s all.
Enjoy while your plant are slowly growing, giving you some taste of the nature.
Paymaan.
Hi, Paymaan–how are peppers used in Persian cooking? I don’t remember much hot food in Tehran, but maybe everyone spared us. ; )
Hi Kathy!
Well, maybe most Iranians don’t eat hot food as Indian do, but still there are people who love hot food. mild peppers are used the most, and hot ones are eaten mostly raw, as vegetables.
Let me give some better explanations on traditional food. Fresh pepper is divided in two categories in Iran, ّFelFel e Dolme ee (Bell peppers) referring to the Dolmeh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolma), which you stuff some cooked rice+meat+spices etc. in things like grape leaves, bell peppers, cabbage leaves, eggplant, tomatoes etc.
Then there are thin peppers (we say Felfel e Ghalami), which have both hot and mild types. these are mostly eaten raw in traditional food. Some people can, some people can’t eat hot ones, I myself even when try most of the times regret 🙂 last summer I tried a few of hot ones from my dads garden and every time I cried for minutes 🙂
Nowadays, peppers are used much more, just like every other place in the world, some people cook curry (I don’t), hot ketch ups are available everywhere, and I do use a few hot peppers in soups, sauces, and always in pickles.
Red hot chilli powder and black pepper powder have always been a part of table as I remember.
Bell peppers are always chopped in pizzas and I like the chicken fried then cooked with bell peppers, it smells very nice.
Hope you find this info useful, and let me know if you wanted me to tell some more.
Take care,
Paymaan.