Beacon Banana Pepper Seed

Why Grow Beacon Banana Pepper?

High-Yielding, Disease-Resistant Beacon Banana Peppers are a dependable sweet banana pepper variety bred for strong garden performance and consistent harvests. The vigorous plants produce early crops of straight, attractive fruits with thick walls and excellent size—perfect for gardeners who want reliable production throughout the season.

Thick-Walled Fruits with Excellent Flavor Beacon Banana Peppers produce smooth, heavy-walled fruits that are ideal for pickling, slicing, and cooking. The plants offer valuable resistance to bacterial spot (races 1–3) and tomato spotted wilt virus, helping them stay productive even under challenging growing conditions. With great early yields, strong plant health, and excellent fruit quality, Beacon is an outstanding banana pepper choice for gardeners who want dependable harvests and versatile peppers for fresh eating or processing.

Beacon Banana Pepper Growing Tips

• When to Plant Peppers

Peppers are a "warm season" vegetable that should be transplanted in the garden once the risk of frost has passed in the early spring months. Start the seeds in a greenhouse or seed starting room 6-8 weeks before your intended in-ground planting date.

Compared to other vegetables, pepper seeds will take longer to germinate. It's not unusual for pepper seeds to take 7-10 days to germinate. Hotter peppers can take even longer. Be patient and keep your seed starting mix moist and the soil temperatures consistently warm. A heat mat is your best friend when germinating pepper seeds.

Once you have pepper seedlings with a well-developed root ball, give each pepper plant approximately 2' or more of space in your garden. Planting them close and allowing the plants to lean on one another helps support the plants as they grow. You can use cages or a Florida Weave trellis to support the plants as they develop fruits.

To learn how to use the Florida Weave trellis, watch this video.

• How to Fertilize Peppers

It's always a good idea to apply some pre-plant fertilizer to the soil when planting peppers. We like to add a handful Coop Gro organic fertilizer in the planting hole for each pepper plant. This ensures the plants have the right nutrients to put down roots in their new soil.

Fruiting vegetables like peppers will benefit from something called "spoon feeding." This process involves frequent fertilizations at lower concentrations, as compared to fertilizing them heavily once.

Once your pepper plants start to grow after transplanting, feed them every 2-3 weeks with a relatively balanced fertilizer. We like to sprinkle Coop Gro around the plants or make a liquid solution of AgroThrive Fruit & Flower and pour that alongside the plants.

• Harvesting Peppers

Peppers can be harvested at any size you'd like. If you're needing fresh peppers for a particular dish, don't hesitate to pick them smaller. Or you can let them grow to their full potential before harvesting them.

Many peppers will turn a different color as they mature. This is often when the peppers will have the most flavor. In the case of Beacon Banana Peppers, they'll start out yellow and mature to a beautiful dark red color. If you can wait and let them turn completely red, you'll be rewarded with some delicious, flavorful peppers!