Just to make sure...

tristantmc2 · Jul 30, 2013

Hey guys

So I left for two days to come back and find a beautiful bright red ghost pepper along with 3 orange ones on my plant. I'm going to save the seeds from this one in hopes of growing them next year and haven't picked the pod yet, so would it be safe to say they're mature or should I leave it longer?Thank you so much!

Phil · Jul 30, 2013

Should be mature enough to harvest seeds. Just make sure you don't store them somewhere that gets crazy hot during the day.

you might want to try overwintering your plant as well, just in case the seeds don't take next season. If you're successful in overwintering, you can look for an early bumper crop next season!

tristantmc2 · Jul 30, 2013

Sweet thanks a ton! And god do I wish I could but there's no where to and my parents will kill me if I try to put that pot in the sun room. Ah the struggles of a 15 year old pepper grower.

Phil · Jul 30, 2013

I hear ya, bro. Just as a note though, you don't have to store the full sized plant to overwinter. You can cut it back to a manageable, minimal size for overwintering and it will grow plenty of new nodes and branches next season. Just an FYI...... Good luck!

smileyguy697 · Jul 30, 2013

I'm for overwintering too. Can't put it in the basement? It should go dormant like a tree if you cut back on watering and don't feed it.
Lol! Fifteen! Grow on buddy!
Btw if they're not green pick them.

ms1476 · Jul 30, 2013

It is good practice to taste the pod, then decide if the seeds are worth keeping. As stated above, ripe (red) should indicate that the seeds would be most viable if saved, but how do you know they are worth saving if it is your first pod and you haven't tasted it? Sometimes, the earlier harvested pods don't taste all that good when compared with later-season pods from the same plant. If so, harvest seeds from later pods.

scratchzilla · Jul 31, 2013

Flavor is determined by the plant the seeds come from, not the pod.

tristantmc2 · Jul 31, 2013

Sorry I didn't get a chance to come back on today

thanks for all the replies and advice everyone

and smileyguy697 yeah I think i'm going to get my lights back out and give it a shot.

Dave2000 · Aug 5, 2013

Any saved seeds are better than none, but if you are growing different kinds of pepper plants in close vicinity consider something.

When they first start to put out a few blooms, the odds that an insect will travel from one plant to another to cross pollinate it are higher so if you want a pure strain next year it's best to use later pods' seeds for that. Later in the season you might still have an equal ratio of blooms on them all but the odds a pollinator will go from one bloom to the next closest one which is on the same plant instead of a different plant is higher. No guarantees, I'm just playing odds.

By the time a pod is mature enough in the ripening process that it is more a new color than green, the seeds are mature enough to be viable even if that color is orange instead of the final red color. With some annuums like bell or jalapenos, the seed is viable even before then.