Ornamental Peppers

In the vegetable garden, some plants blur the boundary between beautiful and delicious. The vibrant reds, yellows, oranges, and purples of our ripening fruits and vegetables sometimes seem to lend themselves to use beyond the plate; These lovely veggies, called ornamental peppers, enhance the flower garden and vase as much as they do our recipes.

Ornamental peppers produce fruits and foliage in a rainbow of colors and a diversity of elongated and round shapes. These fast-growing summer peppers are planted in the spring once the soil has warmed to at least 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The leaves of ornamental pepper plants are toxic to humans and animals.¹