I spotted the largest, heaviest , colored bells at the grocery. I bought 6 for stuffed peppers, the one and only time I buy peppers to tide me over till harvest. They were good too! I may have to pick up more.

Red and yellow were from Mexico, one orange was from Canada, the other Orange twin Mexico.

So, what would be worst case scenario growing them, if they germinate ?

- Lisa

That they start to break from the green stage after about 100 days?

I just ordered this...

https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.o ... eet-pepper

I figure that if I'm going to fail, I want to fail spectacularly.

Yeah, that probably tastes better. It does have an interesting tip, one I've seen before on a pepper named Peter perhaps ? Positive thoughts for success coming your way.

As a back up I should have bought a green one to see if they had any flavor.
I forgot about that site, have to check out what they have come up with lately.

- Lisa

Would depend on what was growing around them and potentially cross-pollinated. If other bells, you should get similar, have done so with good results, if superhots - your guess is as good as mine

There's likely little chance of crossing. In Mexico, it would be acres upon acres of one single variety. Canada, indoor growing (no insects)?

Last season I had saved seeds from the long sweet Aldi store peppers that come in mixed red, yellow, and brown in the bag. I grew out the red and the brown, they were exactly as sweet as the store bought ones, and even better since they were fresh from the garden.

If you like a store bought pepper, by all means, save seeds and grow it out. I would expect bells to come up bell shaped, no way to know if they are hybrids, but I don't see enough difference in the ones I have grown hyb vs non-hyb so worst case is not that bad! Worst case for me would be that they would be very long season, but if they are grown commercially, you'd think they would want quick growth for a faster sales window. And commercial growers would have large plots of the same thing, so crossing would be somewhat unlikely.

i would say you will for sure get a bell pepper.

if the pepper is a hybrid, plants from seed may give you something different from what you bought.
not a big deal. i would wonder about maturity date to get a decent pepper. my climate is way different from mexicos.
my only experience with grocery store peppers is i saved seeds from those small cruncher peppers, the ones that are sold
in bags of red, yellow, and orange mix peppers. my peppers looked the same, but took forever to turn color, and only did after
i picked them, and brought them in to the house due to frost. if i grow them again, they will be in pots that i can move into the house
or they will be in the back of my truck where it is warmer due to the black bed liner.

gary, i will be interested in how those peppers turn out, me being half italian and all.
the size of the pepper looks similar to giant aconcagua. i grew that a few years here, and could never get it
to maturity before running out of summer.


keith

@rxkeith
Your climate in the UP compared to Mexico may be more different than you think.
Pico de Orizaba is an inactive volcano in Mexico that is the 3rd tallest in North America at 18,491 ft.
Mexico city is at 7,349 ft.
Toluca is at 8,730ft with population of almost a million.
But being much closer to the equator the climate is unbelievably nice.
If only I could live there.

greenthumbomaha wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 10:55 pm Yeah, that probably tastes better. It does have an interesting tip, one I've seen before on a pepper named Peter perhaps ? Positive thoughts for success coming your way.

As a back up I should have bought a green one to see if they had any flavor.
I forgot about that site, have to check out what they have come up with lately.

- Lisa

With store bought green peppers, you never know what you're getting. One that is a few days before breaking color will generally be fairly sweet and flavorful. One that looks the same, but is a long way from turning color, can be very bitter. In buying green peppers, I'd like to be able to chose ones that have a small area that's blushing.

Bell peppers are the only thing I have grown where ridiculously expensive hybrid seeds made sense.

The huge majority of the bell peppers grown are hybrids.

Speaking to the OP:

Many grocery store peppers come pre-infected with anthracnose, in my observations (that's where when they start to rot, they get flat soft circles on them). It can be passed on to the seeds. So, that might be a concern.

I'd be more concerned about whether or not the variety were patented than anything else, however. Also, grocery store peppers might be adapted to specific commercialized conditions. They might be super late. They might be hybrids. The parent might have had cytoplasmic male sterility, and maybe they used another variety to pollinate it (I doubt it, but I think the industry has been experimenting with sterility in fruiting nightshades; for what reason, I don't know).

I would recommend growing a named variety purchased in seed packets, like Canary Bell, or Chervena Chushka (not a bell), instead.

I never got the striped ones to grow,2 years in a row I made the attempt.