Fruit trees and small fruits Gardening Mutations Vegetables

Baby Pepper Inside a Mature Pepper

Source: Lucille Samson

Question: I was cutting peppers and I found a green growth inside a red bell pepper. Can you tell me if I can plant it and if so, how?

Lucille Samson

Answer: This is a fairly rare phenomenon, but one that does show up occasionally. It is actually a small pepper growing inside the mature pepper.

It’s called an “internal proliferation” and is an abnormal growth, a bit like a tumor in humans, but not harmful. Sometimes it forms a perfectly symmetrical miniature pepper, but in other cases, like yours, the pepper is misshapen and not as easy to recognize. The small pepper is, however, perfectly edible.

And no, you can’t use it to produce another pepper.

Garden writer and blogger, author of 65 gardening books, lecturer and communicator, the Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson, passed away in October 2022. Known for his great generosity, his thoroughness and his sense of humor, he reached several generations of amateur and professional gardeners over his 40-year career. Thanks to his son, Mathieu Hodgson, and a team of contributors, laidbackgardener.blog will continue its mission of demystifying gardening and making it more accessible to all.

8 comments on “Baby Pepper Inside a Mature Pepper

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  3. can i make the baby pepper grow?

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  6. Stephen Vautrin

    you actually can use it to produce another offspring 🙂

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