🌶️ Chili Pepper
The longest challenge crop — it demands sustained warmth.
Chili Pepper at a glance
Is Chili Pepper frost tolerant?
No. Cold hurts it even above freezing: damage starts at 2°C and it is killed below 0°C. Sow or plant it out only after your last frost.
What temperature does Chili Pepper grow best in?
It grows best between 18 and 32°C. Below 10°C it stops growing altogether, and above 34°C it slows down.
How many days does Chili Pepper take to mature?
About 85–110 days. That is a typical figure: it needs roughly 1450 °C·d of warmth above 10°C, so a warm season gets it there sooner and a cool one later. The city calendars below give the sow and harvest dates for each place.
Is Chili Pepper a cool-season or warm-season crop?
A warm-season crop. It needs warm days and nights, so it goes in after the last frost, once temperatures are reliably above 18°C.
What the numbers mean
These are the actual parameters this game runs on. Growth is driven by growing degree days: each day contributes max(0, min(mean temp, 33) − 10), and Chili Pepper is ready when that total reaches 1450. That is why the same seed takes a very different number of days in Dublin and in Guangzhou.
| Base temperature | 10°CBelow this, the plant accumulates no growing degree days at all. |
|---|---|
| Degree days to maturity | 1450 °C·dThe heat budget it must accumulate before it is ready to pick. |
| Comfortable range | 18–32°CWhere it grows without stress. |
| Frost damage below | 2°CLeaves start taking frost damage below this low. |
| Killed below | 0°CBelow this it does not come back. |
| Heat stress above | 34°CAbove this the plant slows down and stops setting fruit well. |
| Typical time to harvest | 85–110 days |
| Yield per bed | 18 peppers |
Things worth knowing
- Birds can't taste capsaicin: chilies evolved heat against mammals while birds spread the seeds.
- The hottest part isn't the seeds but the white pith that holds them.
Where and when to sow Chili Pepper
Pick your city to see the months when Chili Pepper scores well against that city's real climate records: