Some years I use an old trick taught to me by my uncle maybe 15-20 years ago. He asked me if I wanted to take home some of his jalapeno peppers one Christmas. His garden had just frozen or was about to freeze and ours had frozen long before. I said "sure" and expected him to give me a bag of peppers. Instead, he brought me a wilted pepper plant he'd pulled up days before by the roots. It had both green and red peppers. He told me if I took it home and hung it upside down in a cool, dry location, the peppers would last a long time on the plant and I could just harvest them as needed. Some of the green ones, he said, would go ahead and turn red eventually while still hanging on the plant (assuming that they were close to beginning to turn when he pulled the plant). So, I brought it home and did as he said and was able to harvest and use green and red peppers from that plant for maybe 4 or 5 more weeks.

Since then, I often have harvested entire plants covered with peppers on the night before the expected first killing freeze. I have hung the plants upside down in my garage some years and in our tornado shelter other years. In both cases, some of the peppers did break color and turn red, albeit slowly. That was fine with me, though, because I did want to use them with Red Jalapeno Pepper Jelly.

For what it is worth, I have done the same thing with cherry tomato plants, and have been able to harvest tomatoes from those hanging, uprooted plants for up to a month after pulling up the plant by its roots.

I agree that weather (and pests) can cause all sorts of pepper problems. So can pollination issues .

I have a garden full of peppers of many kinds and have been patiently waiting for them to turn their full mature color before I harvest them.

I've hung habanero plants in my tool shed and "harvested" "fresh" peppers until March. They're not crisp. But they're better than frozen.

This is a picture from last year. But this year's crop of Ají Yellow #2 peppers is doing as good or better than last year's. My brother in NJ purchased 14 different types of hot peppers, all related to the habanero, back in 2012. Jerreth and I managed to get out and visit right before frost. Pete and I went through the entire pepper patch and I got to taste each one. Ají Yellow #2 was my #1 pick. I brought a few home and extracted seed.

George
Tahlequah, OK

George

Macmex, Those look like yellow cayenne peppers. A few years ago I had a bunch of red cayenne's and made them into jelly. It was the most surprising flavor. It had a very light fruity & almost a cinnamon taste. Most of the habanero's are just blazing hot. I am to wimpy for them.

George, Great photo!

Auther,

I am a pepper wimp compared to most pepper lovers. I can handle the hottest jalapenos (which I think have a Scoville Heat Unit of 5,000-8,000) but cannot handle hotter ones. However, there's a great recipe for Habanero Gold jelly, which features dried apricots and habanero peppers diced into tiny pieces, among other things. Between the fruit in the recipe, and the sugar too of course, I can eat the Habanero Gold jelly. My favorite way to have it is with some cream cheese on crackers. The fat in the cream cheese helps make the heat from the habs bearable. I tried it once with fat-free cream cheese and the lack of fat in the cheese meant that the jelly set my tongue on fire. I almost cried.

I make dozens and dozens of jars of Habanero Gold jelly every summer and autumn, and we give away most of it as Christmas gifts. Even people who never, ever, under any condition would eat a fresh habanero pepper love this jelly. Other than the jelly, sometimes I substitute finely diced habs for some of the jalapeno peppers in the Annie's Salsa recipe. That gives us a hotter salsa because the regular recipe of Annie's Salsa is fairly mild (though entirely tasty). Sometimes I chop up some habs in my food processor and then dehydrate them. I then can use a few (very few) hab flakes per recipe when cooking stuff like chili or chicken tortilla soup.

Now that I've mentioned how wonderful the Habanero Gold jelly is, I'll link an old thread from the Harvest Forum that includes the recipe. I use the Big Batch recipe, which I think is the second one listed on the thread.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Thread with Habanero Gold Recipe

I LOVE habanero jam! That's a major product from our fall kitchen. Though, I think I personally eat most of it. I can handle tiny nibbles of habanero, fresh. But it is indeed hot. Years ago, in Mexico, I actually won an informal contest for eating hot peppers. Some of my Mexican friends still talk about it. But since then, I've dialed it back quite a few notches. I had a bout of gastritis and had to go on a year long bland diet. After that, a little hot pepper went a long way. My tastes buds had re-calibrated. My wife suggested, that if I got the same kick from less, that I learn to do with less, so a not to have future problems. I decided to go that route.

Habaneros actually have a great citrus flavor, if you can get past the heat. Of all the habanero types I've tried, Ají Yellow #2 has the best fruity flavor. Supposedly it is about one tenth as hot as an habanero, though, I have to admit I cannot tell.

I love to add some hot pepper to stews and soups. And, I have to say that this summer's favorite breakfast was a three egg omelet with a tomato, cheese and Ají pepper diced into it, and topped with ketchup. My wife put me onto the tomato in an omelet idea. For some reason that had never occurred to me. It's FANTASTIC! Also, it seems that the pepper is not as hot when I dice it into an omelet and cook it.

George

Habanero Gold is my favorite jam also. I found a little market in Springdale AR that always has them, so if I get low on jam and don't have anything ready, I can always go buy a few.

Macmex, I really like omelet with onions and small chunks of ham or bacon crumbled in but instead of ketchup I like salsa or picante sauce. Now pour white gravy and a little hot sauce over it with a big table spoon of about any kind of jelly plopped right down in the middle of it with a biscuit or toast. I'm like Andy Griffith it's goooood..

OkieDawn, I use a recipe for Jalapeno jelly from the Ball Home Preserving Book. You grind jalapeno peppers real tiny with a food processer and make the jelly and then I throw in a hand full of cayenne's just for a little kick. This way you get the jalapeno flavor with just enough heat from the cayenne's to give a little after burn. I doubt it is near as good as your Habanero Gold but for a snack on a cracker it is hard to beat.

Great thread!