I too have tons of pods on a bunch of plants and have been snipping flowers off since the 1st. Energy will focus on current pods. Learned from grandma over 30 years ago.

Thanks, Sandy. Much appreciated.

I'm not sure. I'll take sandy's word for it, but I would think that stressing plants(severely underwatering) might hasten the ripening process. Just a thought.

Kevin

I'll give it a shot. Like I said, I already have more than I ever thought I would. Couldn't hurt anything. Thanks, guys.

Mike

I would think that in zone 6 in CT, any flower or just forming pods will have no chance. So pinching those off might help the growth and ripening of the existing ones. I am doing this with my tomatoes.

Yeah, Seysonn. That's what I figured. I just came in from snipping all the flowers. I'm on my way out the door, so tomorrow I'll probably snip off all the pods that are too small too stand a chance. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for your help everybody.

Mike

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I've been snipping flowers off like crazy. Bhuts Habs, and Scotch Bonnets only took one round, but the cayennes just won't give up putting new flowers out. I also went around and took off any pods that were too small to be mature by the end of my season.

I also cut my watering schedule from every day (which they needed) to every 3-4 days.

One week later, worked like a charm. Not everything's red yet, but there's TONS of dark orange in my garden now. A lot did fully ripen. Shouldn't be long now. Gotta "race" the frost.

Thanks,
Mike