Hello, I will try to answer you questions. In my experience jalapenos are not that hot until they reach full size. Immature chilis are not that good. You know they are as large as they are going to get when they start to turn from green to red. Most people only know jalepenos as a green chili but that is really their unripe color. When they are ripe, they turn red, they are hot, and they have an amazing sweet flavor. If you want to eat your jalepenos green, you will just have to experiement and pick one. Try it if is not that hot leave the others on the plant longer. Pepper plants are actually perennials meaning as long as it is warm enough and they get enough light, they will grow and produce for years. Many chili plants will go through cycles of producing flowers and fruit and then slow down on that as they put on more growth. They will always put on more flowers eventually.

If you "stress" your pepper plants ( starve them a bit for water), they will be hotter. Do this with mature plants, not young plants. And, I believe it is best to do this after they have put on fruit.

just an opinion,
Junkmanme

I grow a lot of Jalapeno peppers and have a slightly different take on what has been said so far. The size and heat is determined by a few factors. When talking about size, the variety has more to do with it than anything assuming environmental conditions are met.

For shear size and heat it is hard to beat Biker Billy and Mucho Nacho varieties of Jalapeno. These two plants are prolific and produce large, thick flesh walled fruit. Under the right environmental conditions produce a very hot fruit.

To tell if a green Jalapeno is ready is really pretty simple, you look for what is called "CORKING". Corking is a blemish on the skin of the fruit. It looks like lines or cracks on the surface of the fruit, much like natural cork. If the fruit is till shinny and smooth, it is not ready. Of course when it starts too. or turns bright red, it is very ripe and you should pick it right away as it will over ripen quickly and spoil if left on the plant.

As stated pepper plants are perennials. A lot of people who grow them outside will severely prune the plant at the end of the growing season, bring them indoors to over winter, and then move back outside in the spring.

Also as stated the heat level has a lot to do with environmental conditions. The biggest mistake people make with peppers and tomatoes is kill them with kindness by over watering and way to much nitrogen fertilizer. You actually want your pepper plants to wilt a little before you water.

Hubby finds that "Biker Billy" sems to be hotter than"Mucho Nacho" here ... do you find that to be true for you also? He now only grows "Biker".

Xalapa (jalapeno) corking on red fruit:

Hi there I'm from Australia and I just started growing jalape�o and was wondering if the temperature had anything to do with how hot they get? The first chili I got off my plant was really hot but the others don't seam hot at all I was wondering if this was because the weather her has cooled down a fair bit since the first chili. I don't really oboe what I'm doing I just like chilies