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

Indoor Sowing: Mid Winter, Late Winter and Early Spring.

Direct Sowing: Not Recommended.

• Peppers take a long time to grow large enough from seeds to produce mature fruit, and they require a fairly long growing season.
• The best way to get a good crop is by planting the seeds indoors 8-12 weeks before your average last frost date.
• Soak your seeds overnight in warm water to help them germinate faster.
• Sow the Pepper Seeds about 1/4-inch deep in a moist sterile potting mixture.
• Mist the potting mix with water daily so it stays moist, or seal the pots in plastic bags so they don’t dry out.
• For best germination, keep the soil between 23 and 26 degrees Celsius.
• The pots won’t require light until the seeds sprout.
• Peppers typically require 14 days to germinate, but they may take as few as seven or as many as 30 days or longer to sprout.
• After the seeds have germinated, place the pot on a light windowsill or in a heated greenhouse.
• When they are 2.5cm tall prick out seedlings, moving each into their own 10cm pot. Make sure the roots are well covered and the leaves are just above the surface of the compost.
• Water and place in a light spot indoors.
• While plants are still growing indoors, move into 13cm pots filled with general purpose compost when roots begin to show through the drainage holes in the base.
• When plants are about 20cm tall, or before if they start to lean, stake with a stick.
• Pinch out the tops of peppers when they are about 30cm tall to encourage lots of branches.
• Plants are ready to go when all danger of frost has passed.
• Either plant directly into the ground, spacing them 45cm apart or transfer them to 22cm pots to give them plenty of space to grow.
• Make sure you water regularly, especially in hot weather and feed every two weeks with a general purpose liquid fertilizer. Feeding should start when the flowers first appear and should continue until the fruit have been harvested.