Harvesting Peppers – Picking Purple Peppers
Purple Jalapeno Pepper
Harvesting peppers has started with a bang this Summer 2020 season. I’ve harvested a few in the past couple of weeks, but now the peppers have started growing in earnest. And picking my purple peppers looks to be next on the agenda!
Purple Jalapeno Pepper
Jalapenos are among the easiest peppers to grow (at least for me). Although I am growing two types of jalapenos this year (Purple Jalapeno and Tricked You), it’s the Purple Jalapeno chili pepper that is clearly leading the way.
It’s June 26th and I’ve picked about five jalapenos from the plant, and I think I have at least 10 more peppers waiting to be harvested. The plant is only about 20 inches tall, and it just keeps flowering and setting fruit with abandon. I am seriously glad that I only planted one of these, because it will provide a ton before the fall frosts show up.
I’m growing Purple Jalapeno in a 3-gallon fabric pot. I’m trying to remember to give my peppers a light fertilizer feeding every other week (since they are in containers) but I probably missed a week or two. In other words — no special treatment.
Purple Jalapeno is an open pollinated pepper variety. I can save seeds from one of the peppers, and I’ll get more of the same next year.
Buena Mulata Peppers
Buena Mulata Peppers
Buena Mulata is a cayenne-type chile pepper that, if possible, is even more prolific than Purple Jalapeno! The plant is only about 18 inches tall and I’ve picked about seven chili peppers so far. I easily have 15 more waiting on the plant!
I’ll pick a few more soon (just to keep the peppers coming), but I want to leave some on the plant for a bit to ripen to red. I decided to grow Buena Mulata for the chili peppers, but this variety can very easily double as an ornamental pepper plant.
Just like Purple Jalapeno, Buena Mulata is open-pollinated and is growing in a 3-gallon fabric pot. For that matter, they are actually growing side-by-side. 😀
Picking Purple Peppers
I started picking purple peppers early this month (June). To be honest, the peppers have not been very spicy yet. Why not?
Part of the reason is that it hasn’t been that warm yet here in East Tennessee. While we’ve had one or two days around 90 so far, most of the days have been in the mid 80s. We had a cool April and May, so the peppers haven’t had the opportunity to “chile up” and get spicy. But, as we get more into the hotter days of summer, the peppers will start turning their own heat up.
In addition, as they ripen to their final color (in both cases the color is red), the hotter they become.
I’ll be doing a harvest video soon, with not only these two chile pepper varieties but also some others. I’ll post the link here as soon as I have it posted.
Meanwhile, feel free to wander around the site and enjoy the info (and the peppers). See you soon!
Pepper Garden Walk-Through Video – June 2020
A pepper garden walk-though and tour is what I have for you today. I thought you might like to see my container garden full of pepper plants — and some peppers as well! Growing peppers is a whole lot of fun, and I enjoy growing all kinds of different peppers. You’ll even see some peppers that I grew from seeds which I harvested from a grocery store pepper!
Growing Peppers in Containers
I grow all my peppers in containers. For one, the soil here in my Tennessee zone 7A yard is hard clay and rocky — I literally have to dig holes for plants with a pick axe! While I have planted a few things in the ground, they have mostly been perennials.
My yard is also sun-challenged (i.e. I don’t have any spots with all-day sun). The trees that I loved when we moved in end up shading my yard way too much. (I’ll do a video and post about growing peppers and other veggies when you don’t have at least 6 hours a day of sun, and will link it here when it’s up.)
Anyway, containers allow me to move the plants around if I need to. Some of the peppers seem to do OK with the semi-shade, while others most definitely need as much sun as I can give them. Growing peppers in containers gives me the most options.
Plus, as the sun angle changes during the year, I can move the container peppers as needed in order to follow the sun.
Enough about growing peppers in containers — on to the pepper garden tour and walk-through!
Pepper Garden Tour and Walk Through
I shot this video on June 14, 2020. I am going to try and do a garden tour every couple of weeks throughout the pepper-growing season, so you can see what the garden looks like, and the kind of harvests I get.
Peppers you will see in this pepper garden tour are:
- NuMex Suave Orange
- Buena Mulata
- Tricked You Jalapeno
- Grocery Store Peppers
- Bolivian Rainbow
- Sweet Banana
- Purple Jalapeno
- Super Heavyweight Hybrid
- Cascabela
Wait until you see Buena Mulata — it astounds me how many peppers I have on that plant, so early in the season!
So, here we go with the pepper garden tour — I hope you enjoy it!
Planning the Garden, New Location
Planning a garden is both stressful and a whole lot of fun! Why both? If you’re like me, you don’t have a ton of room, but there is so much you want to plant. 😀
Moving the Garden
My garden planning is way different this year from any year in the past. Why? Because I moved from South Florida to Tennessee — a really big difference as far as climate goes, not to mention things like sunlight, soil, etc.
For instance — I was trying to plant some daffodil bulbs (always wanted to grow them) several weeks ago. I discovered that the soil here is very different from S Florida. Down there, it was mostly sand — up here, it’s mostly red clay and rocks. I did get some daffodil bulbs planted, but it was a losing battle.
I had a nice spot all picked out for the garden, about 12 feet by 7 feet, perfect sunny spot until afternoon after which I get dappled shade. I even got a compost tumbler and had it set up nearby. When the reality of the soil sunk in (so to speak), my plan to rototill and amend with compost, etc. got thrown out the window. *sigh*
Grow Bags to the Rescue
Fortunately, I’ve had some really good experiences with grow bags, so when the planting in the ground plan went out the door, the grow bags stepped in. I’ll have to get a lot of them, because now it opens up a few other planting spot options. For example, I’ll have a great place away from the main growing area for some ornamental peppers.
How many grow bags you ask? Probably at least 30. No, not all will be peppers — gotta have some tomatoes, some cukes, lettuce and some for those daffodils! Hmmm, might end up being more than 30. I’ll have some 3 gallon, some 5-gallon and a few 7-gallon grow bags. Thought about some 10-gallon, and I haven’t decided.
I actually already bought a few 3-gallon grow bags and 5-gallon grow bags, because I wanted to re-acquaint myself with the sizes before getting a lot more. The 3-gallon will be be great for the ornamentals and some of the smaller-growing peppers. The larger-growing will need the 5-gallon.
(Note: If the above links are somehow not working, try these for the 3-gallon, the 5-gallon and the 7-gallon grow bags. Oh, and the compost tumbler as well.)
Climate Differences
This will be really interesting. For where I lived in S Florida, we had two short growing seasons — from about mid-February to late April, then from late August to November. From May to late August the plants just keel over — if not from the heat and humidity, then from diseases attributable to the heat and humidity.
(But due to the number of hurricanes we’ve had come near to where I lived, I had to quit growing in the August -> November season.)Â November to February was too iffy — sometimes we had cool winters, sometimes we had freezes and I lost most of my plants.
Now that I am in USDA zone 7a, my last average frost date is around the middle of April, and I can expect the first frost somewhere in October. Instead of two shorter seasons, I have one longer one.
OK, enough about the move! The next post will be about the peppers I am planning to grow this year.
