bea, same story here in Tampa. I don't even try any more. The best luck I ever had was with Giant Marconi, but even those were not all that productive.

Do you mean the mini sweets, the ones that are come mixed red, yellow and orange in a bag? We grow them here in Broward in a raised bed. My dad dries the seeds from store bought peppers and plants them. There are a few plants still going strong but not for long with summer coming.

Michelle I'm talking about regular green peppers. Like you buy at the grocery store. Somewhere someone must be growing them or the groceries wouldn't have them for sale. Maybe a particular type of soil is necessary? Or temp? I've gardened in the Greater Cinti area in clay soil and milder summers than FL for most of these 40 years and now in FL - same story. I can grow nice banana peppers but they just don't have the taste of regular peppers. Argh!!!

I grow mostly hot peppers as part of my living, but I was asked to grow pepper plants of all heat levels for for a recent garden festival at a park. I learned a lot when I killed a bunch of the "regular" pepper plants. I asked someone I know who has a field full of green peppers what I was doing wrong. The main thing was that I was taking care of them too much and especially watering them to much. I rotted a lot of them. As soon as I got new plants and held back on the amount if water, I did just fine. Also, as others have said, they really don't take the heat real well so you grow them out early in the year and then you can also do a fall batch. The big difference I see is that these need to be dealt with as annuals, but some of my hot pepper plants are producing piles and are 6 years old.

I grow the Marconi peppers all year and they are sweet, but a bit thinner and longer than bells. I have had some luck with bells if they are grown in slightly filtered sun (mine are slightly shaded by the tomato) and in a fairly large pot with Al's mix.

I have 6 shishito pepper plants. They are still only a foot high and took 4 months to get even that but holy cow they are producing like crazy. My carmen sweet pepper is starting to flower and so are my orange lunchbox peppers(has about a dozen peppers on it now).

I've had good results w/ Red Marconi (in an Earthbox) as well - I learned long ago that containers produce better results, but they need to be large enough that the plants' roots won't be crowded or get too hot. They do best w/ a lot of mulch, compost & water - also compost tea , seaweed extract & a bit of shade during the hottest part of the day. I side dress w/ alfalfa pellets (a.k.a. rabbit food) & also some bone meal &/or diluted milk every so often.

Bell peppers are more finicky than other sweet peppers. I've had the best results w/ non-bells. Sweet Banana is a standby for a lot of people in FL. I've grown it & Bull's Horn (a.k.a. Corno di Toro), Aconcagua, & some very mild chiles like Pasilla Bahio & Mulato Isleno (which is very sweet, once you remove the membranes - so sweet, I used it in salads). Bells I had good results w/ were Purple & Chocolate Beauty.

This was a number of years ago - since that time I've had infestations of chili thrips that made it harder to grow peppers & tomatoes too. I garden organically & don't see the sense in spraying poison on something I want to eat, so more recent growing success has been spotty. Red Marconi was the last variety from which I had decent harvests. Another warm weather problem has been pepper maggots - which burrow into the flesh, making it rotten & inedible.

I've also had countless failures - esp. transplants from stores. I get best results from seed. I look for tall varieties w/ good disease resistance.

HTH

Thanks everyone. I will try some Marconis but I'll probably stick with my tried and true bananas.

I tried to send you a message but you're not set up for it. So here it is: In your answer to my pepper post you mentioned pepper maggots. Luckily I don't have those but I found this interesting article and it mentions non-chemical control. https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/444/444-005/444-005_pdf.pdf

Yes peppers grow in Florida. I imagine pretty much in all of Florida. I know for a fact that there use to be large pepper farms in South Florida Zone 10 in Boca, Lake Worth and Boynton Beach. These farms actually grew peppers that shipped North - Finally develpments took them over. But these farms grew all kinds of peppers: bell, sweet, hot, etc. I am not sure what time of year they planted, but you could go to the U=Pick and get peppers normally starting in Feb.
There are still many pepper farms in the St. Lucie. I know they plant there peppers in the August.

The above is to show that peppers do grow here in Florida.... Now what you will need to know is to find the cultivers that will actually grow in your area. I don't know where to get the seed. maybe you can research the county exts. for your area.

Good luck on growing your peppers. Just keep trying different cultivers until find one that grows well in your locale.

Like a lot of the other folks who posted, I've had good luck with Giant Marconi, although they never get very giant for me. I'm also in St Lucie county, but out on the barrier island, and I mostly grow hydroponically due to lack of space.

I had good luck growing Big Bertha from Tomato Growers.

I have not had much luck with sweet peppers. A gardening buddy in S Louisiana had the same trouble but added Epson's salts last year. He had a sweet pepper bounty so I'll try his suggestion this year. Getting close to seeding time...

How much Epsom salts? BTW, I ended up planting Cubanelles and they're doing very well. Great taste too.