Jalapeno Pepper Plant

[Deleted User]

Hi chums ,I wonder if you can help I bought my DD a small pepper plant from the Chilli Farm on the IoW in April.She has nurtured it on the windowsill and kept is watered and its now trebled in size. do you think its OK to put into a bigger pot on the decking in the garden or will it not survive the cooler outside air. We live in Kent so the chance of frost ,especially now is long gone Its just its become almost like a pet to her as its grown so well and she wasn't sure if it had to be in a green house (bit of a problem as she hasn't got one ) or if it would be OK just replanted in the open air .Also would it need feeding at all It has about 9 tiny buds that look like they will develop into peppers.`looks a bit like a tomato plant to look at Has anyone on here had much luck raising them ??

JackieO

TonyMMM

It will be fine outside once any danger of frost is passed, but it may be an idea to harden it off gently by putting it out during the day and bringing it in at night for a few days.

Keep it in a sunny spot, but watch that it doesn't dry out completely if the weather gets v hot - feeding with a high potash fertiliser (such as a tomato feed) every couple of weeks will keep it producing flowers and fruit (as will regularly picking some of the peppers).

Primrose

I start my chilli plants off indoors and put them outside against a sunny house wall at the beginning of June - (we're in Bucks so if you're much further north I would delay this a little) - when the nights have warmed up. The house wall absorbs the sun and they like the extra heat. Chilli plants don't seem to mind how hot it is but they don't like the cold. The bigger the pot, the more space the roots have to spread and the more fruits you are likely to get. I've tried growing surplus chilli plants in a garden border but the soil isn't as rich as potting compost and the plants didn't bear many fruits.


I keep my chillis in 10 inch pots and mix a few chicken manure pellets in their final growing pot, along with a small quantity of water retention crystals to help keep the compost moist. Feeding with liquid Tomorite will work equally well once the plants start to fruit. Don't expect every blossom to bear a fruit. Some flowers will drop off without fruiting.


Keep the compost moist and if it's really hot, misting their leaves will help. Bring the plant back indoors late September when the nights start to get cooler.


Incidentally, when it has finished fruiting, if you prune it hard back to the lowest couple of shoots, you can overwinter it, and with some of the compost changed, you can grow it again next year and get an earlier crop, although not as many as starting a new plant again from scratch.

[Deleted User]

Gosh thank you everyone for the info, I shall see my DD tomorrow and will tell her

this site is so good for info ,far more informative than google as people's experience is definitely a winner

Cheers chums

JackieO xx

Apodemus

You really want it outside. I used to have one on my office window sill and it shed enough capsaicin into the air to sometimes make breathing difficult!

Davesnave

Chillies are not created equal. Jalapenos are pretty low on the scale for heat and one of the easiest sort to grow.

I'm not sure how well Jalapenos overwinter. While all these peppers are theoretically perennial, in my experience some conk out very easily and others will go through winter under protection. I've successfully kept the odd plant, severely cut back, in a frost free conservatory, but the results weren't wonderful. If I remember rightly, new seed-raised plants caught up with the old-timers.

I've had a lot of bother with the variety I'm growing this year, which hasn't liked being in a polytunnel during spring's cold nights, even wrapped in fleece. I keep mine in there all summer, as the unpredictable winds here make outdoor growing pretty hit & miss.

Primrose

I don,t like startling hot chillies so I grow the Hungarian Wax varietywhich is normally list as mild to medium heat and they are about three or four inches long and look like midniature long Italian pointy peppers.

I,ve grown others varieties over the years and these are comparatively easy to look after in terms of conditions, apart from not liking cold temperatures.

I would agree about the over wintering and smaller crops than plants starting fresh from seed. The other problem about over wintering is that the plants often get badly attacked by whitefly which weakens them.

DaftyDuck

I could tell you the tale of the chilli peppers I was growing on on the loo cistern some years back. Absent-mindedly, I pinched some too-early flower heads off, and carried on.... Minute later, screaming pain, no idea why, started to think the worst.... Took me a further minute to connect the two events, and a good hour to recover. Well, I say a good hour but, as I'm not into that kind of stuff, it was a pretty awful one.

.... and sympathy from my wife? HA! She nearly wet herself laughing...

Not relevant, but they say confession is good for something.

On topic, out by now in Kent is best. Make sure it's in a big enough pot to have sufficient water for a sunny day. Watch out for bugs in the first week of so, while the stems are still so soft....

and remember to wash those hands....

Silvertabby

DaftyDuck wrote: »

I could tell you the tale of the chilli peppers I was growing on on the loo cistern some years back. Absent-mindedly, I pinched some too-early flower heads off, and carried on.... Minute later, screaming pain, no idea why, started to think the worst.... Took me a further minute to connect the two events, and a good hour to recover. Well, I say a good hour but, as I'm not into that kind of stuff, it was a pretty awful one.

.... and sympathy from my wife? HA! She nearly wet herself laughing...

Not relevant, but they say confession is good for something.

On topic, out by now in Kent is best. Make sure it's in a big enough pot to have sufficient water for a sunny day. Watch out for bugs in the first week of so, while the stems are still so soft....

and remember to wash those hands....

Not just chilli peppers. After going a bit daft gardening, I asked Mr S to rub some 'deep heat' onto my lower back. He did, bless him - but then it seems that he didn't quite wash off all of the cream from his hands before going to the loo.......

Primrose

Yes, chillies are renowned for causing this discomfort. For this reason we rarely use our chillies neat these days. We turn them into chilli paste, stored in small jars in the freezer, which are moved into the fridge when the current jar is exhausted. It's easier just to add a small blob of chilli paste to your cooking mixure and doesn't risk cutting them up and then accidentally rubbing your eyelid or another part of your anatomy.

pogofish

I had four Jalapeneo plants going last year - two in the greenhouse and two outside on a trestle in a sunny but sheltered corner of the garden.

Both fruited very well indeed. The greenhouse plants fruited first but apart from that, there was little difference between them for size and quality.