Explore Chiles

Grow Chiles

How to grow chiles anywhere: soil, feeding, climate, your growing season, and every stage from seed to harvest.

Chiles are warm-season plants with a long road from seed to ripe pod. Find your season, then work through the chapters in order or jump to the one you need.

Find your chile season

Climate data: TerraClimate 1991–2020 normals (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, public domain) and Köppen-Geiger V3 (Beck et al. 2023, CC BY 4.0). Towns: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Estimates for a typical year. How we estimate

Chapters

  1. Soil for chiles What chiles need from soil: drainage, a pH near neutral, and plenty of organic matter. How to test your ground, build raised beds, mix for containers, and fix clay or sand.
  2. Feeding chiles: nutrients by stage What nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium do for chiles, how much to feed at each stage from seedling to fruit, how to read a fertilizer label, and how to spot deficiencies and too much nitrogen.
  3. Climate: what temperatures chiles need The temperatures chiles need to germinate, grow and set fruit, when heat makes flowers drop, how cold damages plants, how humidity and rain drive disease, how much sun they want, and how the main chile species differ.
  4. Zones and seasons: reading your chile season Why the length and warmth of your frost-free season matter more to chiles than your winter hardiness zone, how to read frost dates as probabilities, what Köppen climate types and USDA and RHS ratings tell you, and how the climate tool estimates your season.
  5. Seed starting and transplanting When to sow chiles indoors, the warmth and light seedlings need, why habanero-type seed is slow, how to pot up and harden off, and when and how far apart to plant out.
  6. Watering and care How much and how often to water chiles, how to adjust for growth stage, heat and rain, how to mulch, which pot sizes to use, when to stake and pinch, and how to keep plants over winter as perennials.
  7. Problems, harvest, and saving seed The pests, diseases and fruit disorders chiles run into and the least-drastic ways to deal with them, when to pick, how ripeness affects heat, how to dry and store the crop, and how to save seed that comes true.

Browse chiles by season length