Can I grow more than one variety of pepper in the same area?

Bettacreek

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I have seeds for regular bell peppers, carnival mix peppers and I think another type of bell pepper. I also have sweet banana peppers. Can I grow them in the same area, or will they all cross-pollinate? I'd like to save seeds for trading and for next year's growing as well.
 

Grow 4 Food

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From my experience you shouldn't be too bad off as they are all sweet peppers. you might space out the bananas so they dont stretch out your bells but you should be ok. I have run into crossing sweet and hot before do to being too close (made an interesting bell pepper).
 

vfem

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I would just make sure they are 20ft or more away from early to insure no cross pollination. Otherwise, I don't see an issue.
 

obsessed

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I have had serrano and anheims cross from being next to each other. But I have a small suburban set up and can't really do the 20ft apart. so I intend on putting an eggplant or somthing in between them. there is nothing much else to do.
 

Bettacreek

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We have a limited space as well. :/ I have enough bell pepper seeds of the carnival variety (my favorite) that I can just grow one type of bell pepper, but I can't choose between bell or banana, I must have both. How well do you think that planting something between them would work? Our front yard gets the most sun, and I can put a small garden in there, but our back yard doesn't get much sun, because of all of the goofy buildings that the neighbor has (ok, ok, he's got a big shed/garage out back, still, the sunny spots that are left are all crowded). I wonder if I could plant one or the other later to get them to mature at a different time.
 

Grow 4 Food

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You just dont want them to bloom at the same time. Put your banana in a bucket and set them somewhere else if it is a large concern. As long as neither are hot and you are just eating them, does it really matter if they do? This is the way some of the best hybrids happen - by accident!
 

vfem

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Grow 4 Food said:
You just dont want them to bloom at the same time. Put your banana in a bucket and set them somewhere else if it is a large concern. As long as neither are hot and you are just eating them, does it really matter if they do? This is the way some of the best hybrids happen - by accident!
There is a great option... Plant them about 3 weeks between each other so you get different bloom times. After blooms start appearing on your second plants clip off any new blooms on your first round.

Its more time consuming, but with little spaces I think its best.

This way you can collect and keep your own seeds again for next year too!

Good plan G4F
 

patandchickens

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The easiest way IMHO to ensure 'pure' seed for purposes of saving is to bag and hand-pollinate some flowers on each variety. Cover with a fine mesh bag while still in bud phase, then when they open you temporarily remove the bag and hand-pollinate and replace the bag, then once it's clearly With Child you can remove the bag and instead put on a colored twist-tie or something like that so you remember WHICH fruit to save the seeds OF.

That way you do not need to sacrifice any crop by removing flowers, nor do you need to separate things by time or distance.

JMHO, good luck, have fun,

Pat
 
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