When can I plant my peppers outside

This year I started my peppers early. I seeded them already February 28, because I wanted to get an early start. Last year my peppers were still quite small when I put them out into the garden. Well, last year was different. We already had plus 27 C in March. Today is April 22 and it is minus 5C outside. In addition, we still have a thick blanket of snow on the grass. Last year at this time I was already finished with cleaning the yard.

I've been putting the trays with the pepper plants into our sun-room during the day. It is only a 3-season room and even with the sun shining we still have to have a heater going to bring the temperature up to around plus 22C. The pepper plants are growing nicely, but now I'm worried they may grow to large for the small containers I have them in. Sure, I could transplant them into larger containers, but I have 72 plants. I'll be running out of room on the shelving unit. So now I'm hoping it will warm up soon and the snow will melt quickly so I can do my yard-work outside and get my garden ready. I usually put stuff into the garden either at the end of May or the beginning of June. We have a short growing season to begin with and every day is important. The sooner I can get the plants into the ground, the better the chances they will grow and produce fruit.

As you can see, there is still plenty of snow outside

Last year I had over one hundred pepper plants in the garden. Some were my own but most of them I bought. Why so many plants? We love peppers. We eat them in salads, make lots of Salsa and 'Pfeffersosse', that's Pepper-sauce, made with peppers and tomatoes. Something akin to salsa, but it is made with oil and fried instead of boiled, like salsa. I can be eaten like that or used as a sauce for spaghetti. Either way, it tastes great.

I will start my tomatoes probably this week. They grow pretty fast. I don't want them too leggy when I plant them. I may grow around 20 plants, they'll give us enough tomatoes for eating and making salsa and pepper-sauce. I'll probably buy most of my plants anyway. Last year they were so cheap. I bought some for $1.19 for 6 plants at Canadian Tire. Hopefully, this year they'll be as cheap, but even $2.00 for 6 plants isn't bad. A good investments for all those tomatoes they'll produce.