Melrose Pepper – 5 Seeds

Melrose Pepper Seeds. A superb heirloom brought to the United States from Italy many years ago. Tender and sweet, thin skinned, 4″ fruits, turn brilliant red and are produced very early. Flavor is good when harvested green, but becomes sweeter and more intense when allowed to mature. They are sweeter than the bell pepper and their thin, leathery skin allows for both pan-frying and stuffing making the Melrose a surprisingly versatile pepper in the kitchen. Great fresh, stuffed or fried.

Melrose peppers, with their curved, tapered bodies, may look like hotter chilies, but really they are zero-heat sweet peppers. They look a lot like the cubanelle pepper which a popular Italian frying pepper with a mild simmering heat. They also have thin walls  like cubanelles,  but their skin tends to be a little more leathery which helps them hold their shape as a stuffing pepper even with the thin skin.

Growing Melrose Pepper

• Melrose Pepper Seeds should be started indoors 8 weeks prior to transplanting.
• To start seed indoors, sow 2-3 seeds 1⁄4 inches deep, in 1×1 inch cells and provide constant moisture and a soil temperature of 26-29 degrees C.
• Germination takes 1 – 2 weeks.
• After germination thin seedlings to one per cell.
• Once seedlings develop 2-3 true leaves, transplant into larger containers
• At transplanting time, set transplants 18 inches apart in rows 30 inches apart.