The other day I went out and discovered that my jalepeno plants had produced several peppers apparently overnight. They're about 2" long, but appear to have stopped getting longer. Does this mean then can be picked? How long should I leave them there before I can eat them?
Thanks!
You can leave them as long as you want. I left some until late October last year. They began turning reddish, but they were still fine. Unbelievably hot, but hey...that's what I wanted.
Does this mean they'd be good to eat now? (I can't wait heheh).
Mine were milder at this point than later in the season. Either way, they were quite a bit hotter than the kind that come in a can or jar. And, cooking or simply combining it with other ingredients didn't tone it down, which I discovered after making incorrect assumptions about them and putting WAY too many in some homemade salsa. Nobody else was willing to eat it after the first bite. More for me. Same with a pot of chili I added them to.
Warning: After you get done cutting them up, don't touch your nose, eyes or your pecker. You've been warned. Wash your hands with dish soap, not the cutesy flowery make-your-hands-soft soap in a pump dispenser that ladies sometimes have hanging around.
Warning: After you get done cutting them up, don't touch your nose, eyes or your pecker. You've been warned. Wash your hands with dish soap, not the cutesy flowery make-your-hands-soft soap in a pump dispenser that ladies sometimes have hanging around.
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From my experiences with Jalapeno, Habanero and Finger peppers (Cayenne family), the only truly safe way to handle them is to use those inexpensive, disposable gloves, discard the gloves when done handling the peppers and still wash your hands very well.
Of course, it took me 3 different and horrible experiences getting pepper juice on one of my eyes before I finally wised up :)
Peppers can be picked at anytime, but will be at their peak flavor when small cracks appear on the skin.
Even the gloves manage to transfer some of the hot through if you are fooling with a lot of them. Wash often.
I can handle jalapenos with my bare hands if I'm careful about washing and not touching my eyes or anything. Last year I grew a red habenero called "Chef Jeff's World's hottest pepper." I thought the name was a nice gimmick and planted 3 plants. When I cut these peppers using my bare hands the peppers burned through my skin and my entire hand felt like it had been burned by a flame. I had to soak my hand in water for about 4 hours before the burning became tolerable and they burned the entire next day. After that I wore rubber gloves to handle habeneros. I'm even afraid of the normal orange habeneros now.
Unfortunately I couldn't find Chef Jeff's red habenero peppers this year and I failed to save any seeds from last year's crop. Those were the best and hottest peppers I ever had. When I gave them away to people I warned them to be very careful with them and never eat them raw. If those peppers burned through my hands imagine what they would do to someone's digestive system.
BTW: I'd appreciate if anyone could let me know where I can get seeds for red habenero peppers for next year's garden.
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