Can a green pepper be ripe?

This is my first time I've planted a garden, and the green peppers are a nice size and look ready for picking. But I heard that green peppers aren't ripe and they need to change colors first. Is this true? If so, how long does it take to change colors?
thanks for the help

Green peppers are edible, but not as tasty (or nutritious, I presume) as when they get more ripe. I don't know how long it would take for them to change colors, though.

It takes a few weeks for them to change colour. There is however one variety of Bell Peppers that are green always.

The green Bell Pepper has less Vitamin C than the others.

Well, I've always heard that the Green peppers are just red ones not ripe yet.


I have several pepper plants growing in my garden, and the "green" ones have all turned red, even though they say they are green bell peppers, and looked like the ones in the store, when I let them grow they all went to red.

I also have some yellow banana peppers, and the ones I left turned red too, so I don't know what this means exactly but, I'd say that they are ripe when they are red, but if you like them green, then go on ahead and eat them.

I like my banans, just yellow, with a tiny bit of speckles, NOT too sweet at all, so I'm eating them green, but that's the way I like them, I don't like them all sweet and mushy, so there you go.

thanks for the responses. I think I'll keep them on the plant as long as I can w/o getting bad.

If you have to pick them just put them in a window and they will change colors indoors.
I sometimes have to buy green ones because some of the farms pack a red and a green together and I always ripen it before I eat it.

I wanted to leave mine on the plant for as long as possible but the were getting little holes pecked into them by some animal so I picked them when they were tiny. Same for my "chocolate" peppers which are a rich brown color on the outside but green inside and taste just like green ones. When picked that young, they have few to no seeds inside. You can just eat wash and eat by holding the stem. The perfect convenience food!

Thanks for all the input. I waited and the peppers are turning red now.

Yeah, it seems like most peppers turn red if you let them grow long enough. I prefer them this way, they seem much sweeter and have a better flavor! :)

Green peppers do not agree with me raw, I only use red, orange & yellow.