Can I slow down the ripening?

JAHaworth · Dec 3, 2011

Just a quick question.
I really love pickled Jalapeños. The problem I have is that I can't get enough green pods to do a decent batch. If I pick them while they are still green and wait for more pods to be ready the ones I picked first have ripened off the plant. I have doubled the number of plants I had from last year but that's still only 4 Jalapeno plants and I suspect I will still have this issue.
So, is there any way I can slow the ripening process down (without freezing) so that I'll have a decent number of green pods to pickle?
(I'm not talking about doing only doing 1 batch for the whole season but just so that I have enough to make each batch worth it)

Thanks.

muskymojo · Dec 3, 2011

I would think the fridge would be the best bet, but I don't really know...

4 plants should put out decent sized harvests though.

SuperHot · Dec 3, 2011

muskymojo said:
I would think the fridge would be the best bet, but I don't really know...

4 plants should put out decent sized harvests though.

+1
I would think you should be able to produce more than 4 pods of an adult size plant at any given time.

Dshlogg · Dec 3, 2011

I was harvesting 2-3 pounds of jalapenos at a time from my four plants this year. You should have plenty. I think they ripen slowest on the plant though.

I use a mix of red and green for pickling. It's more appealing to the eye.

JAHaworth · Dec 4, 2011

Thanks everyone for your replies. I appreciate the advice.

shigshwa · Dec 4, 2011

Or I think you could use those ethylene absorbing bags.

JayT · Dec 4, 2011

Yep, the bags help, and keeping them in the fridge gives you darn near a month of time to accumulate them.

Avon Barksdale · Dec 7, 2011

You could also try picking the blossoms before they produce peppers in order to allow the plants to grow bigger and produce more flowers before allowing them to fruit, that way you should get more peppers at once.