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Tolli's Sweet Italian Pepper

7Reviews
SKU: 1178A
$3.95 to $9.19

Item Details

Introduced to Seed Savers Exchange in 1979 by SSE member Mike Cannon of New York. Sweet Italian variety given to him by Phil Tolli. Large, dependable yields of 5" long scarlet-red peppers. This is one of our all-around favorites for fresh eating, frying, and canning recipes. Great added to tomato sauces.


  • 75-85 days from transplant
  • Organic
  • Sweet pepper
  • Scarlet fruits grow to 5 inches long
  • Great for fresh eating, frying, and canning
  • Productive

This variety works for:

  • Fresh eating
  • Roasting
  • Salsa


This pepper is: SWEET


Bell peppers are sweetest when they mature to their full color, 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 diced pepper with eggs.


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

A superb sweet pepper!

by

This is a firm, delicious pepper and a new favorite in our family!

Great Pepper

by

One of my top performers in 2020. Consistently produced right up until the frost got it. Relatively small so I think will do well in a pot. Great tasting and we used it in everything we could think of. Will grow again next year

Tasty and productive

by

I love this variety! Nice sweet pepper taste. My youngest child loves to eat them right off the plant and will often pull one off before going to school to stuff in her lunchbox. They are very productive and have resisted bugs that have gotten after my sweet bell peppers.

A Pepper For Climate Change.

by

What a pepper. We live in SW WI where the weather is about as consistently abnormal as it is normal. We started the summer out, from early spring with a moderate to severe drought. July was normal but the drought continued. In August we received 11 inches of rain, one 3 inch downpour in 45 minutes, and very high humidity and constant dew points in the low to high 70’s. What pepper likes this? Very very few. Peppers like hot dry weather. They thrive in low dew points. So hot did Toll’s do? They came in waves. They did not get blossom end rot and they just keep putting new peppers on. All this when the calcium is being washed out of your soils. I call it the “ All Climate Pepper”. And while we work on creating better soils and reversing climate change, we will still be eating the most delicious crunchy red pepper.

Bad batch?

by

Bought 3 brands of Italian pepper seeds, these were the only ones I couldn't get to germinate.

Seed Savers Response: Hi Stephen, I'm sorry to hear this seed did not meet your expectation for germination. We test germination every year to make sure only the best seed leaves our location. Please reach out to our customer service team to be sent a replacement for this seed.

Great Plant

by

great plant. large amount of fruits. No problems even with the weather we have been having in the NE.

Sweet and great

by

We LOVE this sweet pepper. Prolific.