I love cooking with red peppers. They have just so much more flavor than green bell peppers, and they add a touch of color—whether fresh or roasted—that makes a dish like a tabbouleh salad or pizza really stand out. The problem is, I have just never really been able to grow them.

You may or may not know that there are several different types of sweet peppers. We all are most familiar with the bell pepper. I’d describe its shape as cubic—pretty make as tall as it is wide, and with a boxy shape. However, the type of red peppers that I lean toward in the market are the ones that are just as wide as a bell but are much longer and also tapered at the end. These elongated red peppers are, I just found out, notoriously difficult to grow. Maybe that’s been my issue this whole time!

Red Impact Pepper

The Red Impact pepper, an All-America Selections Winner for 2024, is promising to diminish the difficulty level, if not dismiss it altogether. Through the organization’s vigorous trialing program in multiple locales throughout the country, they’ve found Red Impact to be easy to grow and with thick, sweet walls—even when it’s still green. It ripens to a dark red with all fruits having a uniform shape and size. The plant itself is tall—you will need some stakes!—and is also resistant to numerous diseases that affect peppers.

Red Impact Plant Details

You’ll want to know some further details to prepare for growing Red Impact, if you choose to do so. Those details include:

• Height: 28-36 in.
• Width: 16-24 in. – so, you’ll definitely want to use stakes or cages with this pepper!
• Pepper size: 7 in. long
• Average weight per pepper: 9 ounces
• Harvest per plant: 10-15 (I did the math – that’s potentially 8 pounds of peppers per plant!)
• Days to harvest from planting transplants: 75
• Days to harvest from sowing seeds: 90

Praise for the Pepper

The judges who grew and evaluated Red Impact against its closest comparison varieties really had nothing but good words. From the comments it seems they were immensely impressed by the size of the fruits. One judge wrote, “Entry did have HUGE fruits compared to the comparisons, which made the harvest easier.” Another judge wrote, “The sheer size of these peppers is astonishing! They are literally almost 100% larger than the others, volumetrically speaking. Insanity.” How’s that for a recommendation!