Keeping the ‘Tangerine Dream’ Alive! – Sweet Peppers are Changing Colour

10th Jul 2024

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It’s early July and it’s that time of the year again when the magic happens, THE magical colour changing event 🎉, this is when it’s time for early varieties of Sweet Pepper to change from Green to reddy brown to Red (or from green to any other colour like yellow, orange, purple, black depending on variety).

🫑 Top Fact: All Sweet Peppers start from the colour Green before they change to their final colour.

I find it fascinating when the plant knows when it is time to change colour.

How does a Plant know when it’s time to ripen its fruits?

As the Sweet Pepper plant nears maturity, the carotenoids in the peppers start the colour changing process. The Sweet pepper plants have to be in strong sunlight and in hot temperatures, approx 20-25 degrees centigrade is optimal for the colour change to begin. The sun and heat can also affect how quickly the pepper changes colour.

As the temperatures and weather has been rainy and windy in early July in the east of the UK, I decided to close the greenhouse door for a couple of days.

The greenhouse has ventilation from a side and an automatic roof vent and in this time my peppers changed from green to red as the heat was more intense with the sun warming up the greenhouse.

Sweet Peppers ‘Early Napia’

As its name suggests Sweet Pepper ‘Napia’ (from Real Seeds) is an early ripening (from early July) and harvesting sweet pepper which is at least 2-3 weeks ahead of the smaller ‘Tangerine Dream’ variety I am also growing in the greenhouse.

Sweet Pepper ‘Tangerine Dream’

I am quite excited to grow an orange sweet pepper by the excellent name ‘Tangerine Dream’. This variety of sweet pepper is more compact in pots and it is growing smaller peppers which point upright from the crown of the plant.

🌶️ Top Fact: There’s twice as much Vitamin C in a Red pepper than a green pepper.