It has been an incredible year in the garden, including an overwhelming harvest of quite simply, our best sweet red pepper plant ever!
And that pepper plant we speak of is none other than the sweet Italian Roaster.
It is a plant we fell in love with the very first year we ever planted it, way back in 2013.
And the love affair only gets stronger with every passing year.
The Italian Roaster – The Best Sweet Red Pepper Plant Ever
First off, the size of the Italian Roaster is nothing short of stunning.
The long, thick-walled peppers can easily top 12″ or longer. And even the “average-size” peppers are 9 to 10″ long.
But even more than their size, it’s the versatility of the sweet Italian Roaster that is off the charts!
Want a delicious green bell pepper early in the season with late-season flavor? Or a pepper that will stay firm and juicy when grilled?
Perhaps you are looking for a pepper big enough to stuff with your favorite filling?
Or maybe you are simply looking for a red pepper that when fully ripened, oozes with intense, sweet flavor?
Well then, the sweet Italian Roaster Pepper is a dream come true – on all of those fronts!
And if you ever taste one, I would bet the farm (speaking hypothetically of course) you would agree they are one of the sweetest, most delicious peppers to ever grace your taste buds.
Quite simply, it’s why we call it the best sweet red pepper plant ever!
The Harvest
One of the traits we love most about the Italian Roaster is that it can be harvested early in the season as a delicious green pepper.
When plucked at the “green” stage, it tastes like a perfectly mature green bell pepper.
The only problem is, you certainly have to show a bit of restraint to let a few ripen to the sweet red stage later on.
The more red they turn, the sweeter they taste. But they stay amazingly firm even at their ripest of stages.
They really are perfect for making salsa, stuffed peppers, grilled peppers, or any kind of pepper dish you can think of. (See : Our Favorite Homemade Salsa & Canning Recipe)
And do the plant’s ever produce! A typical plant will grow 3 to 4′ tall, and have 8 to 12 peppers growing at a time.
This year’s harvest of our Italian Roasters has simply been off the charts. To date, with just two plants, we have plucked over 40 of the giant peppers.
And the plants are still loaded with plenty more. In fact, they will keep on producing right up until the first frost.
The Best Sweet Red Pepper Plant Ever – Finding Seeds
So where did we find this amazing pepper plant?
We were actually first introduced to the plant when “window” shopping at one of our favorite local greenhouses, Wilson’s Garden center.
It was 2013, and as we were walking through their huge greenhouses full of plants, we stumbled up it and decided to give it a try. And we have never stopped growing it since.
One note on the plant – it is a hybrid, so it is one whose seeds cannot be saved.
And when ordering seeds, you have to be a bit careful to make sure you are ordering the sweet variety, because there are a lot of hot varieties of the Italian Roaster too.
And they are certainly not the same!
For those that want to have seeds to grow, here is the link we order ours from : Sweet Italian Roaster Pepper Seeds
Here’s to growing some delicious sweet red Italian Roaster peppers in your garden.
Happy Gardening! Jim and Mary.
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