Last edited on 8 Oct 2019. View history

Peperoncini

No scientific name recorded

A variety of pepper

How to sow peperoncini: Direct seed indoors, transplant seedlings outside after hardening off

Sun requirement for peperoncini: Plant in Full Sun

Peperoncini are an Italian chili pepper cultivar of either Capsicum annuum or Capsicum frutescens. Peppers are thin, 7-15 cm long, tapered, and mature from green to red. They have a Scoville rating of 15,000-30,000 units and their flavor is more important than their spiciness in Italian cuisine. In America, they can be confused with pickled Italian Sweet Peppers, or Friggitello, which are often labeled "Pepperoncini". Further confusion is caused by their similarity to Banana Peppers.

1: planting
0: harvests
0: seed packets

Growstuff is a free, community-run site for people who grow food. Keep track of what you plant and harvest, find seeds to swap, and see what is growing near you. Join to record your own peperoncinis.

Peperoncini facts

Lifespan

Annual living and reproducing in a single year or less

Height × spread

75cm × 60cm

Row Spacing

45cm

What are growing degree days?

A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.

Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.

For peperoncini, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 8°C and a shortest growing cycle of 60 days at its best temperature, about 930 growing degree days to a first harvest.

Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your peperoncini will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.