Sweet pepper · Minhang, Shanghai, China
When to plant sweet peppers in Minhang
Main outdoor window
16 Mar - 6 Apr
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
2 March
In Minhang, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
15 May - 14 Jun
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 Minhang
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
5-26 Jan
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Plant out
16 Mar - 6 Apr
Two weeks after your last frost.
Harvest
15 May - 14 Jun
Sweet peppers through the year
Against the frost risk in Minhang
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 Minhang.
The median frost-free season here is 287 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 Minhang
Other vegetables to time
Growing sweet peppers in Minhang
When should I plant sweet peppers in Minhang?
Aim for 16 Mar - 6 Apr in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 28 Mar - 18 Apr - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will sweet peppers be ready to harvest in Minhang?
Expect to start picking around 15 May - 14 Jun, 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.