Sweet pepper · Tongchuanshi, Shaanxi, China
When to plant sweet peppers in Tongchuanshi
Main outdoor window
9-30 Apr
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
26 March
In Tongchuanshi, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
8 Jun - 8 Jul
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Tongchuanshi
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
29 Jan - 19 Feb
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Plant out
9-30 Apr
Two weeks after your last frost.
Harvest
8 Jun - 8 Jul
Sweet peppers through the year
Against the frost risk in Tongchuanshi
Why these dates
Peppers germinate slowly and unevenly below 24C, so start them two weeks ahead of tomatoes. Bottom heat makes a bigger difference here than for any other common vegetable.
Frost kills peppers outright, but the more common failure is chilling injury: a week of nights near 5C stunts a young plant for the rest of the season without visibly damaging it.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Sweet peppers are timed from 8 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 2 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Tongchuanshi.
The median frost-free season here is 226 days, against 60 to 90 days to maturity for this crop counted from planting out. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Tongchuanshi
Other vegetables to time
Growing sweet peppers in Tongchuanshi
When should I plant sweet peppers in Tongchuanshi?
Aim for 9-30 Apr in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 27 Apr - 18 May - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will sweet peppers be ready to harvest in Tongchuanshi?
Expect to start picking around 8 Jun - 8 Jul, based on 60 to 90 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will sweet peppers tolerate?
Frost kills peppers outright, but the more common failure is chilling injury: a week of nights near 5C stunts a young plant for the rest of the season without visibly damaging it.