Now that we’re well into summer, I hope you’re enjoying the benefits of a vegetable garden. There’s nothing tastier than a BLT with fresh-out-of-the-garden tomatoes. (Of course, with the high cost of bacon, maybe it’s just a fresh out-the-garden tomato sandwich.)
How many of you either have a garden now or have had one in the past? I depend on several local vegetable stands for my fresh produce. I don’t have time to tend a garden nowadays, but for years I did. I loved growing my own veggies, especially tomatoes, squash, and bell peppers.
A year or two after I’d stopped gardening, I heard something about bell peppers I’d never heard before. Did you know the male bell pepper has three “lobes” on the bottom, while the female has four or five? Not that I care if a pepper is male or female, but the claim is the more lobes the sweeter the pepper. Meaning, you should use the sweet (female) bell peppers raw in salads and cook the not as sweet (male) peppers.
What useful information. Or it would be if it weren’t a total myth!
The Truth
Bell peppers, like most vegetable plants, aren’t male or female. They’re both. The variety of the bell pepper and how ripe it gets determines its sweetness. A green pepper that is allowed to ripen to yellow, orange, or red, will be sweeter, but the number of a bell pepper’s lobes has nothing to do with its sweetness.
Enjoy the fresh produce and don’t forget to verify new “facts” instead of taking them at face value.
Join me next week for a special recipe that includes bell peppers and tomatoes.
You had me! I believed the myth! Thanks for getting the truth out there. So is it true then that sweet red peppers are just ripened green bell peppers?
Yes and no, Shelia. Yes, green peppers can ripen to red peppers, which will taste sweeter. However, I always planted green, yellow, and red pepper plants. The yellow and red turned color quicker than the green pepper allowed to ripen. Whether they are completely different types of peppers, or just altered to ripen quicker, I don’t know.