The many varieties of a crunchy and tasty fruit you can grow in your own backyard. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
Bell peppers are fairly easy to grow at home as long as the weather plays along. They are a perennial in tropical areas. But in colder climates, they are grown as annuals and they really have no tolerance for cold weather. They require a fairly long growing season, often up to 90 or even 100 days, so the shorter your summer, the sooner you need to start seeds indoors.
There are many different types of sweet bell peppers to grow. The yellow Canary Bell. Big Red. Vibrant orange Coral bell. California Wonder which is delicious when picked green, or can be left on the plant to ripen to a sweeter red pepper. There is also the Purple Beauty. A striking heirloom pepper with a deep purple color, thick-walled flesh, and 4-by-3-inch fruit. The Chocolate Beauty offers a luscious, deep brown color with super sweet flesh.
In addition to being delicious in a salad, or sliced into strips and served with a big bowl of homemade hummus, homegrown bells add texture and flavor to a variety of tasty dishes.
Listen to Cathy Isom’s This Land of Ours program here.