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Sheepnose Pimento Pepper

7Reviews
SKU: 0045A
$3.95 to $54.34

Item Details

An Ohio heirloom from the family of Seed Savers Exchange member Nick Rini dating back to at least 1940. Tomato-type peppers are exceedingly flavorful with sweet juicy flesh. Very meaty, good for canning. Keeps for an extended period when refrigerated.


  • Organic
  • Sweet pepper
  • Flattened, tomato-type pepper
  • Sweet, juicy, thick flesh
  • Good canning variety
  • Stores well when refrigerated

This variety works for:

  • Fresh eating
  • Roasting
  • Salsa
  • Canning


This pepper is: SWEET


Bell peppers are sweetest when they mature to a full red, but the crunchy green flesh is a great addition to many savory dishes. You can stuff peppers with quinoa, rice, or a mixture of cheese and beans and bake or cook rings of pepper in a skillet with a fresh egg inside.


Roast your red peppers over a burner or under a broiler, then peel and puree with hummus or slice and add to grilled eggplant and mozzarella sandwiches with fresh basil.

Growing Instructions

Instructions - Sow seeds indoors ¼” deep. Peppers germinate best in warm soil, so gentle bottom heat may be helpful until seedlings emerge. Wait to transplant outdoors until soil is warm.

  • Start Indoors: 8 weeks before last frost
  • Germination: 14 Days
  • Plant Outdoors: 12-24” Apart
  • Light: Full Sun

Ratings & Reviews

7 reviews

  • 3 stars
  • 0 reviews
  • 2 stars
  • 0 reviews
  • 1 star
  • 0 reviews

Memorable flavor, sturdy and disease and pest free for me.

by

This is the best tasting sweet pepper I’ve ever eaten. Even than those my grandfather grew in his garden. Every year I hope SSE will offer these as starts. Once tasted you will not forget them. I deducted one star because I found that they did not bear as many fruits as some - at least in our short, cool Minnesota growing season.

Love these peppers!!!!

by

I have grown these for a few years now in KY and they are undoubtedly the best tasting pepper I have ever grown. I agree with the first reviewer concerning yield. I have never had large yields from any single plant, so my solution is just to plant more of them. They do require a minimum of 18" distance from each other, as I have tried planting closer and the plants do not thrive or produce well. These are very disease resistant plants and even though I don't spray or treat these plants in any way, I only lose a small number to insects each growing season. The trick to avoiding pest damage is to pick the pepper as soon as you see an area of bright red on it and then let it ripen to full red indoors. Once it is full red, you can put it in the fridge. These peppers make the best pimento cheese I have ever tasted and I also use them liberally in any dish that calls for red peppers. Minus one star for being low to medium yield plants. I would give them five stars for taste.

Wonderful small sweet bell pepper

by

Great germination, flavor, and nice thick flesh without a lot of seeds. This is the first year we grew these and they’ll be in our garden every year. They are turning red before our sweet banana peppers are turning orange…our banana peppers have always been the first peppers to ripen, but the Sheepnose peppers are winning…it’s July 26 and I’ve harvested about 8 Sheepnose so far off of one plant. They’re a small bell pepper, but they’re very good. Next year we’ll have more of these in our garden.

Wonderful Sweet Peppers

by

Wonderful medium size peppers. They have a sweet taste without any type of bad after taste. If these were compared to a Red Marconi sweet pepper, the Sheepnose are better tasting which says a lot since Marconi’s taste good too. My husband loves Red Marconi, but he said the Sheepnose out does them. They are ripening before our sweet banana peppers, good amount on the plants…not as many as a banana pepper plant, but more then a regular size bell pepper plant. They turn red from green without turning other colors like orange first. The seeds are contained to the center of the pepper which makes them a little easier to eat. The plants are about 3 ft tall. I have one growing in a 17 gallon container also that is doing well.
The seeds germinated well and the plants are healthy. I’ll be growing these in our garden every year.

A bit spotty on returns but so darn cute!

by

I've grown these two summers in a row from the same packet. They did pretty well the first time- I probably harvested 6-8 per plant, but they struggled the second season and I only got a couple from each plant, while some plants barely grew once transplanted. They did freeze nicely, which is helpful since they come in sporadically enough you may want to store them up before preparing them.

Great for maritime climate

by

On the northwest Pacific coast, most peppers never ripen. These ripen so sweet and delicious! The winner in our garden.

Wonderful but Not Sweet

by

I bought these last year and they are wonderfully productive but NOT sweet! About jalapeno heat. Central Florida, productive many months, even through our summer and now in our relatively mild winter I have more buds coming. Will try for hot pepper jelly next season. 4 instead of 5 only because I was looking for a small sweet pepper.