Post #1252338

2026-03-07 10:46 UTC

Thank you everyone for your responses about my question about when to pick a capsicum (see above). We had the big moment tonight. Our six year old grandson is here for a sleepover and loves picking fruit. He picked the small, green capsicum, we divided it into quarters and each of us ate a piece. The skin was quite thin and it definitely could have lasted longer on the bush (yes, they do go red after a while) but there is nothing like sharing a piece of home grown produce with a child. Thank you @LifeTimeCooking for your responses. We don't get frosts here - inner Melbourne no longer seems to get them, so would the plant be OK to sit outside during winter? Our biggest problem is that during winter our tiny backyard only gets about an hour of sunlight. @aeduna - you left a capsicum on a bush for 8 months here in Melbourne! Interesting to know for the future. There are a couple of flowers on the plant currently so maybe I will have the opportunity to let the fruit ripen slowly for that long. @weezmgk Stuffed capsicums - yum! I live in Melbourne, Australia so we are entering autumn and despite warm and hot days next week, temperatures are on the way down. I am not sure what words Europeans use for capsicum, including the English. To Australians the word is used for sweet capsicums which are never spicy like chillies. That, and the confusion over season shows why country-based gardening hashtags can be useful. I also add the hashtag for our city as our country has hot, dry deserts, tropics, sub-tropics, temperate and in a few places, alpine climates. Gardening is very different around the country. I like the way the US has very clear climate zones that people use. I know that kind of thing exists here but not so widely used. I should look up my Australian climate zone and use it in posts. #GardeningAU #gardening #Melbourne

Replies (3)

@sunflowerinrain@mastodon.online 2026-03-07 11:46

@perkinsy @LifeTimeCooking @aeduna @weezmgk Geographical tags are a good point. I must remember to use them myself. While reading posts in English I have to do a websearch for elucidation when something seems odd, and it often turns out to be about one of the other continents.

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@LifeTimeCooking@mastodon.au 2026-03-07 15:38

@perkinsy @aeduna @weezmgk Yes, tags are good. I use #GardeningAU and # GardeningAdelaide. Even within Adelaide, where I am, there are definite zones too 😆 I am in a drier area than many other suburbs. In good sun, it takes about 5-6 weeks from flower to good sized fruit, and 2 or 3 more weeks after that to turn red. Lack of sun will prolong the ripening time. You might just squeeze in more fruit before it is too cold/lack of sun to mature well. I suspect the plant won't last over winter, especially as it won't get much sun, but you can try. Put it in the warmest spot, or maybe bring it inside if you have a bright sunny room. I've had presumably dead sticks in the garden come back to life with good watering and feeding the next season. But even for a miniature variety it seems quite a small plant ie not bushy, so 🤷‍♀️ . It might struggle even inside. I was surprised by 2 people commenting on the heat of red capsicums. Sweet capsicums are so common here (sweet bell peppers) that we (I) forget there are other varieties. Occasionally I can find some elongated varieties in the shops, some of them labelled "sweet" and some labelled "hot". To me they are mildly hot but I have good heat tolerance compared to some others.

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@aeduna@aus.social 2026-03-08 20:57

@perkinsy @LifeTimeCooking @weezmgk I cannot recall if that particular plant survived after that. This year's batch have also got riper much quicker - i guess it was just a terrible spot for it, but not _too_ terrible? They were capsicums seeded from one bought from a shop, I just had a bunch of seeds and some spare gardenbed and threw them in. They grew as you'd expect - all tangled together and weird, and then I had to remove the bed, so they had to survive through that. Somehow now in pots (about 75% survived) they are fruiting and seemingly happy.

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