Telling apart Peppers and Chillis

[gemnoire]

As a newcomer to this whole gardening thing, in a fit of enthusiasm I sowed some Chilli and Pepper seeds a few weeks ago. All was coming along well until my cats got involved and sent the propagator to the floor.

I successfully rescued some of the seedlings, which are now very happily growing along in small pots on the windowsill (and thankfully so far ignored by the cats). The only trouble is, for the moment all the seelings are looking very similar. So, how can I tell the two of them apart, preferably before they start fruiting (as I plan to put the peppers out in the garden, whilst the chillis are earmarked for the conservatory.

[Small pumpkin]

That's unfortunate, sorry to say Probably not going to tell till they fruit

[Zelenina]

Hi gemnoire. On the whole chilli and sweet pepper plants look much the same. But there might be some clues if you tell us the names of the varieties, particularly if they turn out to not all be the same species.

[johnjohn]

Hi gemnoire, welcome to the Vine. As already said it might be possible but it's unlikely. Where abouts are you? If you're in the UK you will probably find that you're peppers will also benefit from the conservatory but you may have a warm sunny spot that they could enjoy?

[Mitzi]

Peppers are capsicum annuum and so are some Chillies so you won't be able to tell the difference between them. But there are also some other species of chilli so then you could. That's why Zelenina says tell us the varieties you have sown.

[gemnoire]

I'm pretty sure the peppers are Big Banana whereas the Chillis are Jalapeno. I'm in South West London, so our weather is pretty mild comparatively. My garden is west facing and the veg patch probably gets the most sunliight compared to the conservatory so it's a bit of a trade-off between light versus warmth.

I had understood though that the pepper would probably grow bigger than chillis so will they be ok in pots on a windowsill?

[johnjohn]

The pepper could grow to about 60cm I think and could be grown in a pot but would take up a reasonable amount of space. It could do nicely outside as could the chillis so how about doing both? Jalapeno are Capsicum annuum.