Female Tasmanian Pepper plants need a mate!

So you got yourself a female Tasmanian pepper plant and are looking forward to harvesting berries from her in the coming years.
Sorry to tell you that you will be waiting a while!

Whilst true that the female produces berries she still needs a male plant to pollinate her flowers. Without a male her berries will be small, if any at all, and sterile (unable to reproduce)

So if you want bountiful bunches of black berries you need to make sure you have both a male and a female plant!

So how do you sex a Tasmanian pepper plant?

Well the obvious would be wait to see if it produces berries. However if you have bought one plant and need to find out the sex then another way would be to inspect the flowers.

A female Tasmanian pepper has smaller flowers and fewer petals than the male , but the main difference is that it has one fat superior carpel right in the middle of the flower

The male Tasmanian pepper has larger flowers with more petals and several long skinny stamen coming out the middle.

They get lonely by themselves, so plant them in pairs in a sheltered shady spot out of direct sunlight and plenty of moisture!

Once you have your bountiful harvest then check out our Recipe page on the things you can do with pepperberry