What is a Jimmy Nardello Pepper?
The Jimmy Nardello is a sweet pepper in a spicy pepper shape. We’re kidding, kind of, but the elongated and tapered shape of this pepper can sometimes confuse people. However, the wrinkled skin and curly-q'd tail offers thin skin and walls of flesh with a bright, sweet flavor.
How to Grow Jimmy Nardello Pepper Seeds
Jimmy Nardello peppers will need full sun and rich, well-draining soil. It is a longer season crop, 90 days to harvest, and will produce a ton of peppers up until the frost kills the plants in the fall. While peppers can sometimes be a little tricky for newer gardeners, with these tips and tricks you’ll be harvesting bushels of sweet peppers in no time.
Peppers should be started indoors eight to ten weeks before your last frost date in the spring. They can be slow to germinate and get going, and will rarely sprout without supplemental heat. We recommend using a heat mat to keep soil temperatures between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Seed your peppers in containers ¼ inch deep in a high quality seedling mix. Pat down the soil lightly to ensure adequate seed to soil contact. Keep seedlings well-watered until germination and throughout their growth. We recommend watering twice a day but ensuring the soil is not sopping wet.
Pepper seedlings being grown indoors will need to be kept under high quality grow lights in order to mature. In most areas in the spring there is rarely enough light to grow healthy seedlings, even in the sunniest of south-facing windows.
Keeping seedlings under a humidity dome can help keep soils moist enough to germinate your seeds. When they begin to germinate, remove the humidity dome. Check that your seedlings stay moist for the first couple of weeks after sprouting. They have not developed many roots yet and will dry out quickly without your help. Water from the top down in the beginning, and then you can switch to soaking the seed flats in water once they reach one to two inches in height, so the roots are watered from the bottom up. This helps develop strong roots. Be sure to check your seedlings everyday for adequate water, temperature, and airflow and to avoid any potential pests or disease infestations.
When to Plant Jimmy Nardello Peppers
Jimmy Nardellos, like all pepper varieties, are warm season crops that are frost sensitive. They must not be planted outdoors until all danger of frost has passed. Otherwise, you risk a late spring frost killing back your seedlings that you’ve worked so hard for! Check your average last frost date and wait to plant for two weeks after that date. At this point in most growing zones, you can consider yourself safe from frost.
When seeds are started indoors and transplanted outside, they have to be hardened off. Hardening off is the process of acclimating your plants to outdoor weather conditions and temperatures. Inside your home or greenhouse, your seedlings have been coddled. Outside in the garden, things are a little different. Hardening them off will allow them to adjust rather than experience shock once planted outdoors. About a week before you plan to transfer your plants to the garden, you’ll begin leaving your plants outside in a partially shaded area starting for an hour or two. You’ll slowly introduce them to full sun and longer hours outdoors over the course of a week or two. Once you’ve completed this process, your transplants can be safely planted out in the garden.
Where to Plant Jimmy Nardello Peppers
When considering a location for your pepper seedlings, select a location with full sun, ideally with eight hours of sunlight per day. They will love rich, well-draining soil. Before planting, soil can be amended with plenty of compost and organic matter, especially if you deal with clay soils like we do here in zone seven.
We recommend rotating all of your crops. Try to select a location that hasn’t had tomatoes, peppers, or potatoes in it in the last two to three years. Ensure that your pepper seedlings will be able to grow at their mature planting distance of 18 to 24 inches. Overcrowded peppers means less airflow, plants competing for nutrients, and faster spread of disease and pests.
How to Transplant Jimmy Nardello Peppers
When transplanting your pepper seedlings, take care not to disturb the roots. We recommend digging a hole about twice the size of the root ball of the transplant. At the bottom of the hole, include some water soluble balanced fertilizer (the amount will be specified on the box or bottle). Adding fertilizer will give your peppers the boost they need to grow strong and produce effectively. Water thoroughly at planting time. Continue to water frequently in the first few weeks to help get the plants established. Mulching is also a good idea to conserve moisture and decrease weed pressure.
How Often to Water Jimmy Nardello Peppers
As always, it is really important to water regularly and maintain soil dampness from the time you plant a seed until it is a more established plant at which point it is better equipped to handle environmental stress. Not watering enough is the number one reason people struggle with germination and survival of seedlings!
When to Harvest Jimmy Nardello Peppers
Harvesting peppers is truly the joy of growing them. Peppers can be harvested at any size or stage of growth. Jimmy Nardellos are perfectly ripe when they are fully and deeply red. Their sweet flavor is fully developed, as are their seeds. They, of course, can be harvested green, mottled green and red, or any other color combination on the spectrum of unripe to ripe.
Using a sharp knife or pruners, snip the stem of the fruit from the rest of the plant. You can attempt to pull the fruit from the plant but this can cause damage to the plant so we do not recommend this.
