I’ve got Thai Dragon, Habanero, Cayenne and Tabasco chilies as well as some red and orange bell peppers growing this year, it’s getting cold these nights and the first frost is supposed to hit this friday night and I still have a few dozen unripened or partially ripened chilies on the plants. Can I just pick what I have and it will ripen like tomatoes or should I try and transfer the plants into pots and try to keep them going in the house?
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Throw a bed sheet over the plants at night, remove in the morning. That’s what I do for tomatoes.
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if they are picked but close to maturity placing them in a brown paper bag will ripen them in short time.
I make hot caps to place over the plants to extend the growing time.
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My solution was to harvest them and place them on a sheet pan under the old ass kitchen radio/light as the bulb in it is still incandescent, but only like 25w, so just a small amount of heat, after 2 days most of the chilies had ripened to some degree, some completely some not at all.
Only problem next year is that the new neighbor just had a 6’ privacy fence installed, it blocks what used to be the best growing plot in the garden without having to setup in the middle of the yard instead.
get some 55 gallon poly barrels and split them lengthwise. make a frame to screw the barrel halves to and put wheels on one end and legs on the other and drill drain holes in the bottom of the barrel halves. these will make 2 portable raised garden beds per barrel.
(no bending down to weed them and easily out of reach of rabbits) if built at waist height
each half will take 1 forty pound bag of crushed stone, 1 bag garden soil, 1 bag manure and one bag topsoil mix.
im an old fart and getting down on the ground is easy but getting back up is a real B!TC#
the soil will be good for 4 seasons before needing more fertilizer added.
and you can easily move them wherever you want to
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I was going to say I heard bananas ripen other fruit. But I was interested and googled it.
The molecule that triggers the ripening process in peppers and other non-climacteric fruits is something that the scientists are still searching for.
This a a 2012 article but.
With the chilies I grow rabbits aren’t an issue, there is a nest under the bushes not 10 feet from where I plant the chilies but the chilies are too hot for them to go anywhere near them. Now the strawberries on the other hand…
It is interesting chillies burn mammals but birds love eating them and pooping the seeds far way.
Chilly plants gave us the big FU and we got smart and eat them for flavor regardless.
Then we breed them to give an even bigger FU.