I had a great experience with YOLO Wonder and California Wonder sweet peppers last year after buying them as nice healthy plants at the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale. The plants produced tons of delicious peppers. Since I knew I was going to miss the plant sale this year because I was out of town, I decided to grow my own.
I started them indoors about 2-4 weeks later than I should have. I didn’t think that would be a big deal, but I was wrong. Especially this year.
I transplanted them in late May, and this is what they looked like in late June. June was an especially cool and rainy month, so combined with the late seed starting, there is no way I’m going to get any peppers from these plants.
So what to do? I could wait and see what happens, but it really doesn’t look promising. Instead I called my local family run nursery to see if they had any pepper plants left. Bingo! They did and even still had lots of interesting kinds. Look at these great plants, peppers already set, ready to go. I picked up North Star, California Wonder, Tomcat and Big Bertha varieties.
They were a little root bound, but that is to be expected buying them this late. I just rubbed open the roots on the bottom and they’ll be fine.
So much better and already mid-July and I have peppers (and some great looking celery).
Sometimes in the garden you just need to cut your losses. Next year, the pepper seeds are going in on time. Or maybe I’ll just leave growing peppers to my friends at the nursery and stick to growing the things they don’t carry myself.