How to Know When to Harvest Jalapeño Peppers

Foreignos are the easiest pepper to grow, but knowing when to harvest them, that's where most gardeners get it wrong. Jalapeno peppers are in the Solanaceae family. Also in that family are tomatoes, eggplants, tomatillos, all the other peppers as well. All the plants in the Solanaceae family, they hate friends frost, so peppers cannot be moved out into the garden until all threat of frost has passed. Peppers are also very slow to get started. In fact, in my experience, they take the longest to start from seed. So if you're growing peppers in your garden and you want to be the one that grows them from seed to plant, then you got to start really early in the growing season. Plant pepper plants indoors in seed starting mix, and you're going to need lights on those peppers. You're even going to need heating mats. The first few years I tried to grow peppers from seed indoors, I didn't buy heat mats and those things didn't budge for months. Hot peppers, they like hot soil, so you've got to start them with a heating mat and with a light. Now, you could also just go down, support a local nursery and buy their organic natural peppers. Right at the start of the season, they're going to have really nice pepper starts for you, and then you can just put them right into the garden. You do not, and I repeat, you do not want to start from seed with pepper plants. They will never produce fruit before you reach the end of your season. Peppers need to go in as a plant in the garden. My favorite companions around peppers are tomatoes on a trellis bush, beans lining the sides, and then you can add things like basil and marigolds. I have a whole video about how I put plants together together in the garden, and you can check it out right here to get some ideas. So the first stage of a jalapeno's growth is just this small green pepper. It's going to be a nice Kelly green. It's going to be very hard to the touch, very crispy feeling, and it should have no marks on it. These are the youngest peppers, and they're actually able to be harvested when they're just 2, 3, 4 inches long. Then as these peppers start to mature, they're going to do what we call corking. You'll start to see these little lines in the pepper skin. There's nothing wrong with the pepper, it's just that the pepper is aging, the skin is stretching and giving with all the watering and the dry spells, and so it's just starting to show marks of growth, but there's nothing wrong with the pepper at this stage. As the corking continues, you're going to start to see the green pepper slowly turn red. And at this stage stage, it could actually look brown. This is a moment where a lot of new gardeners kind of freak out and think something's wrong with the pepper, but it's just on its way from green to red, and turns out that's like a weird shade of brown. Then finally, in its final stage, that green pepper turns completely red from top to bottom. There should be a lot of corking in the pepper at this point. You're going to see lots of little brown and tan spots in the skin, but perfectly normal. And this one is basically at the end of its ripening stage. So you want to harvest your jalapeno peppers at this early stage if you have certain goals with your harvest. First and foremost, if you want a ton more peppers. So the faster that you harvest these first peppers, as soon as they form, that tells the plant, we got to make more peppers. So the more you harvest these at this early stage, the more the plant is going to produce peppers. I like to harvest these bright green peppers for pickling. The fruit harvested at this green stage is the firmest it's going to be. So it is perfect for topping things where you want a nice crunch. For me, like when I eat a soup, like a tortilla soup or Vietnamese pho, I want to have crunchy peppers on top, not soft ones. I also like to have these for pickling because I want my pickles to be crunchy, too. You also want to harvest at this stage if you don't want a lot of heat. So these jalapenos at the bright green stage, they have the least amount of heat that the plant will have. And just a little pro tip, a lot of people think that the heat of the pepper is in the seeds, but it's not. It's in that little white skin on the interior of the jalapeno. So if you're trying to get all the spice out of your peppers, and who would want to do that, but if you do, you want to scrape that white cell membrane from the sides of the pepper. That'll make it a lot less spicy. Now, if you're going to want to make hot sauce, if you want to smoke or dry your peppers, turn them into what we call chipotle peppers, then you want to harvest them at this stage, at the dark red stage. At this point, these peppers are hotter than they are at any other stage, they also have a more complex flavor. They're a little bit sweeter, so it makes them perfect for smoking and drying. And they also actually have more vitamin C in them at this point of maturity. Now, if you find yourself somewhere in the middle, you want to harvest your peppers right in the middle. And these are going to be a little bit softer. They're going to have a little bit more complex flavor and be a little hotter. So when you see this corking happening in the skin, it's time to cut. No matter what stage you pick your peppers in, the name of the game with peppers is to keep picking, because the more you pick, the more they grow. I may be using my hands, but it's advisable to use some pruners when you're cutting your peppers because they can break the stems. Some of these are a little fragile and brittle. Knowing that you you should definitely pick your peppers before a storm is coming in. Whether it's hail or rain, a big storm on top of these plants that's full of fruit can make the entire thing fall over and break. Word to the wise is to stake your plants before that happens and then pick as much fruit as possible before the storm arrives. And you definitely don't want peppers on your plants when frost is on its way. So be sure if you see cold in the forecast that you harvest as many peppers as possible. And I have a trick for overwintering your pepper plants so that you can replant them in the garden next spring. And I made a whole video about it that you can watch right here.

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