Growing Hungarian Wax Peppers: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · September 30, 2026
Hungarian wax is a pale yellow, banana-shaped hot pepper. It looks almost the same as a sweet banana pepper, which is the main thing to know before planting both: label them.
Medium heat, quick to produce
Bonnie Plants rates its hot banana, the same type, at 5,000 to 10,000 Scoville units, roughly jalapeño heat and up. Baker Creek calls it a Hungarian heirloom that is excellent for short-season areas, high yielding and quick to produce. Burpee and Baker Creek both list 70 days from transplant, and Burpee’s fruit runs about 8 inches.
Pick yellow for pickling or let them ripen to orange and red for more heat and sweetness.
Plant size
Burpee gives 24 inches and Bonnie lists its hot banana as short, under 24 inches. One plant per square foot in the Garden Designer.
Start seed indoors about eight weeks before your last frost. The Bell Pepper profile covers shared care, and the companion guide lists neighbors.
Hot nights and dropped flowers
Pepper flowers fall off without setting fruit when nights stay above about 75°F, per the University of Delaware’s Weekly Crop Update. In zones 9 and up, expect a midsummer gap in fruiting; our zone pages flag it.
Growing it next to other peppers
Different pepper varieties cross-pollinate easily, hot ones included. NC State Extension notes that when hot and sweet peppers cross, the heat shows up in later generations grown from saved seed, and suggests keeping varieties 20 to 30 feet apart if you plan to save your own. Baker Creek, which grows seed for sale, isolates varieties by at least 500 feet. If you buy fresh seed each year, you can plant sweet and hot peppers side by side.
Sources: Baker Creek, Hungarian Wax; Burpee, Hungarian Wax; Bonnie Plants, Banana Hot; NC State Extension, Saving Your Own Seed; University of Delaware Weekly Crop Update.
Companion planting guide for Hungarian Wax Pepper · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 3-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 1.5-2 ft
Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. It needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.
When to plant Hungarian wax pepper, by zone
Every zone Hungarian wax pepper grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3a & 3b | Apr 4–Apr 11 | Jun 13–Jun 20 | Aug 22–Aug 29 |
| 4a & 4b | Mar 20–Mar 27 | May 29–Jun 5 | Aug 7–Aug 14 |
| 5a & 5b | Mar 15–Mar 22 | May 24–May 31 | Aug 2–Aug 9 |
| 6a & 6b | Feb 28–Mar 7 | May 9–May 16 | Jul 18–Jul 25 |
| 7a & 7b | Feb 13–Feb 20 | Apr 24–May 1 | Jul 3–Jul 10 |
| 8a & 8b | Jan 28–Feb 4 | Apr 8–Apr 15 | Jun 17–Jun 24 |
| 9a & 9b | Dec 21–Dec 28 | Mar 1–Mar 8 | May 10–May 17 |
| 10a & 10bSpring window | Dec–Feb | Feb–Apr | ~70 days after transplanting |
| Summer window | May–Jul | Jul–Sep | ~70 days after transplanting |
| 11a & 11bSummer window | Jun–Dec | Aug–Feb | ~70 days after transplanting |
Harvest dates are about 70 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Hungarian Wax Pepper plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1.5-2 ft.
Soil & water: pH 6-6.5. Needs well-drained soil. Amend with lime if soil pH falls below 6.
Good companions for Hungarian wax pepper
- Basil: Reputed to repel aphids and improve pepper growth nearby, but a controlled garden trial testing this same claim on a related crop found no pest-reduction benefit from basil, and found higher pest counts on the basil-companioned plants. Treat this pairing as unproven, not as a working pest deterrent.
- Onion: Reputed to deter many common pepper pests, though this specific pairing hasn't been tested the way onion/carrot pest-masking has. Treat it as garden tradition.
Full companion guide, including what to keep away from Hungarian wax pepper →
Varieties worth considering
- Mexican Sunset (F1): A 2018 All-America Selections winner: a hot wax pepper with 6 to 7 inch fruit on a compact, bushy plant about 20 to 22 inches tall. In the AAS trials it out-yielded and out-tasted the comparison varieties Hot Sunset and Super Hungarian Hot, and it's early, at 60 to 65 days from transplant. The fruit colors from pale green through orange to red. (source) Buy seeds: True Leaf Market
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy Hungarian wax pepper seeds
Burpee · High Mowing Organic Seeds (Hungarian wax pepper seeds)
The varieties we recommend above each have their own buy links, for the suppliers that sell that exact variety.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page also go to other retailers we may earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a clear consensus of positive, independent reviews, or ones we bought and use ourselves. Each item on our gear page says which.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing Hungarian wax pepper" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
Pin this for later
Growing Hungarian Wax Pepper: A waxy yellow hot pepper for pickling and stuffing that does well in short seasons.
Save to Pinterest