Petit Marseillais is an heirloom sweet pepper from the South of France. With delicate walls, the mildest hint of heat, and the perfect manageable size for adding to a sauté, it is sure to be a favorite. These sunset-orange fruits are about five inches long, two inches wide, and beautifully wrinkled or wavy. The plants are two feet tall and consistently loaded with peppers - you will be giving them away to friends long after you've found 10 ways to eat and preserve them. We freeze about 5 gallons of deseeded Petit Marseillais peppers per year, and use them throughout the winter. We also stuff the fresh peppers with rice, beans, vegetables, and cheese and bake them to perfection. Days to maturity: 70 Seeds per pack: 25 Germination rate: 89% on 07/14/2026 Planting / harvesting notes Start seeds indoors 8-10 weeks before the last frost and transplant into garden well after the danger of frost. Keep seedlings moist but do not overwater. Transplants should be initially watered in well, and plants will be most productive with regular irrigation and full sun. Seed keeping notes Peppers are generally self-pollinating, though we isolate different varieties of the same species by at least 50 feet, in hopes that flying insects will not cross pollinate them unexpectedly. There are several important species of peppers, so check your scientific names! Pepper seeds are ripe when the fruits have turned their final fiery color - in this case, sunset-orange. Cut the fruit, scrape out seeds, and lay them out to dry on a labeled screen or paper product in a ventilated place away from direct sunlight for a week or two. Drying the peppers before seed extraction can slightly lower your germination rates, but works fine for home seed saving as long as the peppers do not rot.
