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With the frost approaching rapidly in my area, I brought inside a few potted chili pepper plants for overwintering. Some of the plants, however, still have lots of unripe peppers on them (hundreds in some cases), so before chopping up my plants for overwinter preparation, I would like to wait a bit for the peppers to ripen. I however do NOT have great conditions for them (no sunny window), so they basically transition drastically from sunny days to low-medium lighting basement.

I am wondering what is the best and fastest way to achieve this, assuming I do not want the plants to produce new flowers, and that I’m going to chop it up a bit. I figured that topping the branches that have close to no peppers on them would be a good idea, but I have yet to find any information that confirms or deny it.

Also, what could be the downsides of this? Will the peppers degrade in quality? Or will it take ages for them to ripen? I mean, I could harvest them unripe and I’ll be pretty happy too, but I prefer ripe. If however it is not worth the effort, I’ll just harvest as it is and start the overwinter process.

Info: The plants are hot chili peppers ranging from mild to super-hot, in case that matters.

J.Deschenes
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1 Answers1

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Time to take them off the plant, J. I've never allowed peppers to mature on the plant especially when you are getting freezing nights. You don't want to have those peppers, the chilis themselves, freeze. The leaves will freeze first but once the fruits have frozen they would be ruined for sure.

how to dry chilis

String them up and hang in a dark, airy area to ripen. And they always ripen. Jalapenos turn red, all green peppers turn red. I am not a chili NUT yet so this is just my experience. These articles do suggest the longer on the plant the better but once they've started turning color (green to a spot of orange) they are considered ripe and fully flavored. I do this with tomatoes as well. As soon as I see a color change those tomatoes come off the vine to ripen indoors. And the flavor is so intense I can't believe allowing them to ripen on the vine would be any better.

My hubby and I argue this point constantly. Trouble is, we have maybe 2 months in a row of growing season without freezes so this is what we have to do anyway. Or lose our product.

I've never noticed any difference taste wise between vine ripened and ripened indoors. Not a chili stays green. Nor a tomato. Do you roast your chilis? I've built fire pits for chili nut type people. Grins! The sides are high enough to slowly roast peppers hanging over coals. fire pit

drying hot chilis

when to pick peppers

stormy
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