When to pick Peppers?

[ItsEssexRob]

Two of my sweet pepper plants have fruit. One only has one fruit but is perfect bell pepper shape and about 3 inches long and 3 inches wide. The other has about 10-12 fruit and more coming is very bushy and plenty of flowers, however they vary in size and shape from 1 inch to about 4 inches, and are more shaped like those small sweet peppers you can get in Tescos.

My question is, are some peppers designed to be quite small and how would I tell? Do all peppers go red/yellow/ orange etc eventually only at present they are all green. I dont want some to rot because I leave them too long waiting for them to change colour if they dont always do that.

Also the plant with multiple peppers seems to be getting a bit crowded, Im not sure how the peppers will have room to get to the size you generally see. Are they often picked whilst smaller?

[DGoulston]

I am very interested in this too, as I have a mini bell pepper plant, and they are all green at the moment, so wondering if/when they will turn.

Darren

[rustylady]

Most, if not all, peppers start out green and ripen to different colours. You can pick and use them green if you wish. They shouldn't rot if you leave them on the plant to ripen, unless conditions in your greenhouse are really damp and the plants get botrytis.

[ItsEssexRob]

How big do most fruits get? and will they break through stems and crush other fruit as they expand?

[howtwolivesimply]

i just pick them before they could get to that stage,lets hope to get some lovely ripening sun.mmmm

[Alison]

If you let all the fruits stay on to ripen your plant will usually stop producing (obviously the final colour will vary depending on variety, some stay green, others red, orange, yellow, chocolate, purple etc) so I tend to pick some as immature green ones and then leave others to ripen. I don't do anything scientific about it, just pick as I need. You'll also find the size on one plant can vary quite a lot, I think what the weather is doing makes a difference. They do however keep better on the plant than in the fridge if you know what I mean.