Jalapeno peppers

[ddiogyn]

I have a jalapeno plant loaded with a dozen full-sized peppers, and two dozen or so more that haven't yet come of size, as well as many flowers in bloom and in bud.

I've been leaving the full-sized ones on the plant as i'd like to harvest enough in one go for pickling, however, would picking the fully-grown ones (which are still green) stimulate the plant to speedup growth of the other smaller peppers?

Thanks!

[Caro]

Hi ddiogyn,

Conventional wisdom says yes, picking the larger ones will focus the plants energy into other fruit, both growing and starting new ones.

I would imagine you could freeze the ones you pick until the others are ready and you can pickle them all together - just chuck them in the freezer as they are.

[rustylady]

Main question is do you want your chillies green or red. If you pick them now you can freeze until you are ready to use them, but if you want them red then you need to leave them on the plant.

[WrexTheDragon]

Still early days for my chillies, I will be giving mine another 6-8 weeks before I pick them.

[Silent Reader]

Still early days for my chillies, I will be giving mine another 6-8 weeks before I pick them.

May I ask why ?

I've got a couple of plants on the go, some are getting to around 2" in length, how long should they be getting, and if you leave them on the plant, does this increase the heat ?

[Two_Sheds]

The heat increases as the chilli ripens, ie turns from green to red

[Snadger]

Jallies are traditionally eaten green! I've got a load to pick this weekend and loads more to follow hopefully.

[ddiogyn]

I thought the 'immaturer' the pepper the hotter it was, such that bell peppers (least sweet) green<yellow<red (sweetest)

I'll be pickling them green, adding a few red ones for colour at the end of the season.

If i freeze them, will they lose their crunch when i come to pickling them?

[rustylady]

There's a difference between sweetness (bell peppers) and heat (chillies). As TS said, chillies increase in heat the riper they get. As for freezing, then yes I assume they would lose their crispness if frozen.