Will hanging my plants help?

stettoman

stettoman

You folks that know me know that I have a viciously short season, and I'm at the end of it now. I have a huge number of green pods out in the 8th acre, I'm curious if this will work to salvage unripened peppers.
 
I'm going to hang a few plants upside down in the shed, at least keeping them from threat of frost. There's no hard freeze yet in the forecast, yet a few areas have reported upper 20s recently. I have some trophy Aji Amarillos that I was really hoping had a chance to turn orange. There is absolutely no sign of ripening in any of them.
 
So my questions to you, and yeah, "it couldn't hurt" is already on the list, do these peppers have to have started some stage of ripening for hanging the plant upside down to help? And do the roots have to hang intact or can I cut them off at the ground to make hanging easier?
 
I would love me some edjumacated advice on the subjeck, thanks!
 
If your considering taking 'em out of the ground with roots (kinda) intact anyway, why not dump them in a pot with some fresh soil? The roots can take some damage before the plant gives up so I'd give it a shot.

Edit: To answer your question: I know growers of certain herbs say hanging the plant upside down makes more sugars travel to the ehm.. buds. I never gave much truth to the claim, just sharing what I know.

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b3rnd said:
If your considering taking 'em out of the ground with roots (kinda) intact anyway, why not dump them in a pot with some fresh soil? The roots can take some damage before the plant gives up so I'd give it a shot.
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Naw, don't have the room or the time. I'm checking each morning and though there is some new action, it isn't much. Supposed to get dangerous chilly the next two nights.

Edit: To answer your question: I know growers of certain herbs say hanging the plant upside down makes more sugars travel to the ehm.. buds. I never gave much truth to the claim, just sharing what I know.
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Sugars sound nice, I'd settle for simple ripe.
 
Maybe pick off all the runty new pods that have no chance of growing to size or ripening.
Every time the sun comes out for a day my amarillos throw another while set of tiny pods that have no chance.
I'm going to starting trimming mine to hopefully to focus it's energy on ripening. I too have some hand length amarillos I'd like to ripen.
 
stettoman said:
Naw, don't have the room or the time. I'm checking each morning and though there is some new action, it isn't much. Supposed to get dangerous chilly the next two nights.


Sugars sound nice, I'd settle for simple ripe.
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Fair enough. You could also try placing a few in a bag with a banana. The excess ethylene gas supposedly helps other fruit ripen faster, or something like that.

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These are the Aji Amarillos in the 8th acre.
 
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It's odd, how different peppers ripen different. I can pick a paprika pod with hardly the slightest indication of a color change, put it on the window sill, and in two days it's already a candidate for the dehydrator. Same with the Urfa Bibers, Lemon Drops and the Rocotos. The Aji Limos take about twice that, and need to already have at least a spot of color in order to finish, and they stay really firm throughout the process.
 
The Aji Amarillos take literally weeks to fully ripen, and if they aren't already a good ways to done will turn mushy quick.
 
It was Aji Amarillo that started it all for me. These were the peppers I was wanting to grow in the first place. It's frustrating that I can grow them, but don't have the length of season to get a good crop of ripe pods. That takes nothing away from all the neat new-to-me pods that I'm enjoying now, but still.
 
I have a little floorspace in the shed, much less than rafter space. I'm going to try to pull a couple plants and keep them in 5 gallon paint buckets full of water to see if they'll give me what I want. An Aji Amarillo for sure, but my Large Orange Thai has dozens upon dozens of perfect pods, all green as green can be, and some peppers you can't get fresh at the store around here....And the Mini Rocoto Rojo, no ripe ones there yet either....
 
 
 
I would pull the ones that are full size and could possibly ripen. The problem with leaving them on the plant is that the plant will pull water from the pods trying to stay alive. You will wind up with shriveled pod quicker. If you put the picked ones in a open plastic bag a lot will ripen while keeping the humidity up so the pods don't shrivel.
 
Ok, I stripped 5 Aji Amarillos, dug the best one up and put it in a fiver. The pods from those 5 plants filled one 1 gallon sack.

I picked all the Paprika,all the Gochu, they seem to ripen, green or no.

Large Orange Thai is in a bucket.

Aji Rocoto Oro too.

The rest will have to abide.....
 
Well it was worth a shot. The three I bucketed didn't take too well to being thrown into a bucket. I have a lot of pods left to pick green though, hoping for the best.
 
 
 
yes, hanging plants with mature pods will lead to some, if not most, ripening
 
 
i have a short season here in maine - when there's a threat of a hard frost, i pull the plants with more than 10 pods, give or take, and hang them.......less than 10 pods i pull them and put them on a window screen, elevated off the ground for air flow, toss a few apples underneath
 
i do pretty well with both methods, but the hangers do better
 
The first year I grew peppers I didn't know about clipping buds in Sept. so as frost approached in mid-Oct. I found myself with 20 - 30 plants loaded with green peppers. Found an article (Can't now.) that reported yanking plants retaining root mass, hang upside down in warm area (I used a heated garage.) and spritzing the roots with water every other day, WORKED GREAT (Sorry no pix.)! Leaves died and fell off, stems turned brown but peppers continued to ripen.... Had nice red Jals in Dec.!

Recently I had a mishap and a few branches broke off a Scorpion plant so I brought them inside & left them on a table receiving 4-6 hours of sunlight per day. Most ripened, some rotted... Guess it depended on ripeness when incident occurred.
 
Sorry for blurriness, smudge on camera lens, wife not happy about other photos I might add....
 
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Hope this helps,
NECM
 
stettoman said:
So INSIDE a CLOSED paper bag with a banana is not high percentage?
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From what I understand, the ethylene gas method involving a bag and a banana only works with c. annum.
C. chinense have to start ripening while on the plant or else they just won't ripen at all. I don't know about c. pube or c. baccatum. It's worth a shot with either of those. 
 
peppamang said:
 
From what I understand, the ethylene gas method involving a bag and a banana only works with c. annum.
C. chinense have to start ripening while on the plant or else they just won't ripen at all. I don't know about c. pube or c. baccatum. It's worth a shot with either of those. 
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So far you're on the mark. The Paprika, Gochus and Urfa Biber are responding really well, I've got a number of each well on their way this morning. I've got my Large Orange Thai in a bucket that gets shuffled in and out of the garage, today I'm going to pick a bunch and see how they do with the banana.
 
The Aji Amarillo are slowly turning to mush. No color but green. The plant I brought in has about 20 nice pods on it that are actually starting to ripen, so there will be a taste :drooling: ...The rest are just not...Nor are the few Brazilian Starfish or Bishop Hats I picked green. Worth a try, though....
 
I do have a couple Aji Oros turning yellow in the banana bag, not sure if they'd started by the nanner or if there was yellow I didn't see before I put them in the bag, but if more start, I'm grabbing the pube pods still on the plants and gettin' them nannered up.
 
I'd really love to see the Thais ripen. I have a shitload of green ones on the bush.
 
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