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Find out how to know when to harvest peppers and learn how to harvest peppers the right way. It’s pretty easy to harvest peppers, but you’ve got to use the right tools and remove the pepper pods in the right way so you don’t hurt the plant.
Plus, you’ve got to get your timing right.
Knowing how and when to pick peppers is one of the final challenges of growing peppers, so if you’ve got his far, kudos to you! But how should you remove a pepper pod from the plant? And when? Should you wait until they’re fully ripe? Should you pick peppers while they’re green? What about late in the season?
We’ve got the answers to all of these questions!
How Can You Tell When Peppers Are Ripe?
While the stages of the pepper plant life cycle are the same, regardless of type, there are so many pepper varieties to choose from, and they all ripen at different rates. Plus, the conditions you grow them in can impact maturity rates, too. Smaller sweet bell peppers tend to ripen faster than large bell peppers and spicy peppers.
Color
The most obvious way to tell when your peppers are ripe and ready is when they fully change color. Green bell peppers, for example, are just unripe bell peppers and, although edible, they’re not fully mature, so they’ll be a little more sharp and a bit less sweet.
Most peppers start off tiny and green and stay green until they reach their full size. Then, the full size green peppers start to mature, turning from green to yellow, orange, and red. Other varieties may turn a pale yellow to white or may be a deep royal purple. Regardless of their final color, peppers ripen in the same way. And only when they’ve achieved this color are they actually ripe and ready to pick.
Whether you’re growing sweet peppers or hot peppers, the color of the fruit is the best indicator of ripeness.
We like to let our peppers ripen fully before we pick them, but it depends. For example, ideally, we’d wait until we have beautiful, bold red bell peppers but, if, late in the season the pepper plants are starting to struggle or die off as the weather cools, we’ll pick green peppers and cook with them, so they don’t get killed by the cold weather. Peppers are cold-sensitive, so have limited temperature tolerance.
The same goes for if any of our pepper plants get diseased or infested. We’ll cut our losses, pick the peppers, and destroy the damaged plant. Red bell peppers that are deliciously ripe are better than green bell peppers that are slightly bitter, but green peppers are better than no peppers.
Length of Time Since Planting
When you plant bell peppers should give you an indication of when to harvest them. Each pepper variety should have an approximate number of days to maturity. The fastest growing pepper plant varieties are ready to harvest in as little as 60 days. Others, such as, habanero peppers, banana peppers, or ghost peppers can take 160 days or more. Harvesting hot peppers always takes longer than harvesting bell peppers.
So, when you plant your pepper plants, remember to record the date you planted them and check the seed packet for the estimated number of days to maturity.
Just remember that if you plant your peppers indoors, they may take longer to ripen, as the first few weeks after sprouting are dedicated to leaf growth and root development. It’s not until after you transplant your peppers into larger containers or outdoors that they’ll start to set fruit. Similarly, if you prune your peppers to get bigger, better harvests, your plants may take longer to set fruit and ripen.
Knowing when you planted the seeds and how long they should take to mature also helps you to know if you’ll need to harvest before they fully ripen. You don’t want to get caught out with an early frost and lose any peppers still on the plant. If a frost is likely, pick the peppers even if they’re still green.
Corking
Corking happens when the flesh of the pepper swells faster than the skin is growing. The expanding walls of the pepper cause tiny tears in the skin. These tears turn white as they heal over. While not necessarily a sign of full maturity, corking is a promising sign that your peppers are getting ready to ripen.
Harvesting Peppers Regularly: Prevent Your Plants From Overloading
Seeing loads of fruit setting on your pepper plants is great, but if you leave too many peppers to mature fully, you’ll cause fruit overload. Whether you’re growing jalapeno peppers or a giant sweet bell pepper, fruit overload is a problem.
When there are too many fruits all vying for nutrition from the pepper plant, it realizes that there’s too much fruit and shuts down new blossom (and therefore new fruit) production. You eliminate this issue by harvesting peppers regularly, even if that means harvesting peppers, or at least a portion of them, before they fully ripen.
To prevent fruit overload, remove about 50% of the peppers once they reach their full size but before the peppers begin to change color. While fully ripe peppers have a sweeter flavor, green peppers are perfectly suited to cooking with.
Harvesting peppers frequently also reduces the weight on the plant and limits the risk of the pepper plant falling over or a branch breaking under the strain of the fruit. Even with long, thin, cayenne peppers or mini belles, too much fruit fleshing out and ripening at one time can damage the plants.
Do Peppers Grow Back After Picking?
No, peppers don’t grow back after picking. But when you pick peppers, you encourage the bell pepper plants or chili plants to produce more flowers and, therefore, more peppers.
How to Pick Peppers
Picking peppers is pretty easy, whether you’re harvesting chili peppers or sweet peppers. There’s just a few crucial steps.
1) If you’re harvesting hot peppers, make sure you wear vinyl gloves to protect your skin. Remember, chili peppers like cayenne peppers and ghost peppers contain higher levels of capsaicin oil than sweeter peppers, which can cause serious burns to your eyes, skin, mouth, and nose. So be cautious when picking hot peppers. Put on gloves before you start harvesting peppers, remove the gloves and dispose of them as soon as you’re finished. And, just to be on the safe side, wash and dry your hands.
2) Use a pair of sharp scissors or pruning shears or a very sharp knife to carefully cut peppers away from the plants. Hold the pepper in one hand, take your cutting implement in other, and make a firm, clean cut between the pepper and the plant’s branch, leaving a short stem attached to the fruit.
Never pull peppers from the plants, even if it seems like a quick and easy option. Pulling peppers or trying to snap them off risks you breaking the plant’s branches and ruining the rest of your harvest.
What Happens If You Leave Peppers on the Plant Too Long?
If you leave ripe fruit on the plant too long after the peppers are ready to pick, they’ll start to get soft as they begin the over-ripening process. Overripe peppers quickly soften, may show signs of rot, particularly in wet weather, and the skin starts to look leathery and shrivelled. If a pepper gets to this stage, it’s beyond saving and you should cut it from the plant and dispose of it.
If you let this happen with the first peppers that ripen, you’ll send a signal to the plant that the fruit isn’t being used and it should therefore stop further fruit production. This will greatly reduce your pepper harvest. So if you spot an overripening pepper, remove it right away to limit the damage.
How to Store Peppers
You can store peppers in the fridge, if it’s above 7°C or 45°C for around two weeks in the crisper. Any colder than this and they’ll start to decay rapidly, as peppers are not cold tolerant.
To store them in the refrigerator, wash the peppers as soon as you harvest them, then place them in a perforated plastic bag in the crisper drawer.
Can You Dehydrate Peppers?
Yes, dehydrating peppers is a great way to store them for future use. You can check out our collection of dehydrator recipes here, where you’ll find a couple of different options for dehydrating hot peppers and bell peppers.
It’s super easy. If you’ve got a dehydrator, you simply wash the peppers, slice larger peppers into rings and thin peppers into strips, and dehydrate on a low temperature until the peppers are completely dry. Then you can keep them in their slices or grind into powder to use in seasoning blends or add to dishes that require a bit of heat.
Can You Pickle Peppers?
Yes, you can pickle peppers as long as you follow some basic safety precautions, like using sanitized jars, storing the filled jars correctly, and using plenty of vinegar. This pickled pepper recipe from Roasted Root is a good, easy method.
How to Ripen Peppers
If you’ve harvested semi-ripe peppers, you can leave them in a cool spot with plenty of air movement for three days to ripen further.
FAQs
You can pick red peppers or green ones. Green peppers that are at their full size are fine to pick, but they have more bitterness, as the sugars aren’t fully developed, so you’ll want to use green peppers for cooking. Red peppers are mature and at their peak flavor.
Yes, you can refrigerate peppers after picking. For the best results, store them in a perforated plastic bag in the crisper drawer.
In most areas, peppers are tender annuals as they’re so sensitive to the cold, so they complete their life cycle in a single year. However, in warmer climates where temperatures never drop below 50°F or 10°C, peppers can produce for up to 5 years.
Yes, if you’re picking hot peppers, you need to wear gloves to protect yourself from the capsaicin which can burn your skin, eyes, nose, and mouth. If picking mild peppers, you do not need to wear gloves.
Yes, you can eat peppers with blossom end rot. Just cut away the affected part and use the rest of the pepper like normal. However, peppers with blossom end rot don’t store well, so should be used right away.
Yes, you can eat peppers with sunscald. Just take a knife and cut out the damaged flesh, then use the rest of the pepper. But peppers with sunscald damage don’t last long so should be used as soon as possible.