Description

Sweet pepper Permagreen
Capsicum annuum

Forest green sweet pepper, turning dark olive-green when ripe. Flesh of medium thickness. Sweet carrot flavor when fully ripe, very tasty and crunchy. Productive plant, 60 cm high. Selected by Elwyn Meader in the ’60s. A rare variety that has been preserved by Sand Hill Preservation Center. One of the rare peppers that ripens while remaining green! 75 days to maturity.

Full sun, well-drained, rich soil. Sow indoors 10 to 14 weeks before the last frost. 6 mm deep. 40 cm between plants.

Germination: 85% in November 2025
Ecological seeds produced at Catherine’s Ornamental Garden.

Note
Elwyn Meader, professor of horticulture at the University of New Hampshire from 1948 to 1966, developed several varieties for cold climates. Names that ring a bell when you’re used to scouring seed catalogs: Envy edamame soybeans, Sweet Granite cantaloupe, Sweet Chocolate bell pepper, Golden Midget watermelon, Sweetnut squash, Fireside popcorn… and Permagreen sweet pepper.

We brought in seeds in 2022 when we saw it on Sandhill Preservation Center‘s catalog. It seemed pretty obvious to us that he was the only one who had been preserving Permagreen peppers for quite some time. Ordering there isn’t a 2-click process: mail order only, certified cheque only (which means lining up at the bank and paying the fees)… But Glenn Drowns is very personable, and you can’t blame him for remaining ‘old school’. It was a pleasure doing business with him.

This is the only sweet pepper we know that ripens green. The hue changes as it ripens. You’ll get used to harvest it. We tried to take photos to show you, but the skin is so shiny that all you can see are reflections.

Cultivated in our test plot in 2022, an intruder plant ended up under the same net without us really knowing how. We were a little worried about cross-breeding under the net, but it didn’t happen. After testing our seeds in 2023, we put it into production for real in 2024 and added it as a novelty in January 2025.