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Picked and ate my first Big Jim of the season!

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dragon49

I Picked and ate the first Big Jim of the Season. Do all of these turn red, or are some ripe when they are green? This was much hotter than I expected, not quite a Bhut, but much hotter than a Jalapeno. There was nothing special about the taste, just a normal "green" taste, with good heat. I saved the seeds, around 50 of them. Take a look:

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They all turn red for me, but I've never had a Big Jim with much heat. That's what makes them great for poppers though. Don't expect good germination rates from those "green" seeds. Better to save seeds from red ripe pods. Nice pictures.
 
Hey dragon, nice looking pepper you got there.

It's just a guess on my part but I'm pretty sure they ripen to red when fully ripe so may even be a little hotter woohoo!! I've tried saving some seeds from a "green" pepper and had no luck with them. The seeds I got from a fully ripened red pepper were much easier to sow.

Hope you get a ton more ;)
 
All will eventually turn red. It is great that the first one had good heat because the ones picked later in the season should be hotter. The regular Big Jim can be inconsistent with some mild some medium and some hot. If you truly want to experience the best way to eat these chiles...PLEASE, I BEG YOU...roast them on the bbq (or in the oven). The outer skins will blacken a bit and puff out. Turn them so they don't get over cooked. The aroma is to die for! When they are done, drop them in cool water and the skin will peel easily. Now the taste of this green chile is where you want it. You can roast red chiles too, the skins are a little more difficult to remove. Use it for a stuffed chiles relleno, chop it up to add in anything, or use it in your salsa. The first roasted green chile of the season I see...I put salt on it and just eat it whole. It don't get any better!
 
They will turn red. Last year, I thought my Big Jims tasted best in that in-between stage where peppers are like brown/purple - after the green, but before the real red. Actually, I prefer most peppers in that in between stage, but the BJims were particularly good right at that point.

+1 on the roasting comment above. Roasted is the way to eat these.
 
+5 Will ripen to red
+3 Roast them

Personally I only really like them ripe red and roasted or at least partially ripe
 
bigt said:
They all turn red for me, but I've never had a Big Jim with much heat. That's what makes them great for poppers though. Don't expect good germination rates from those "green" seeds. Better to save seeds from red ripe pods. Nice pictures.
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I had the same experience with the Big Jims. If you pick them off of the plant while they are green, they probably won't ever turn red. Some of the best seeds I've used were from dried out red pods. Just my experience..
 
Thanks for all of the replies.

I'm saving the seeds anyway, and will try germinating a few next year. This plant is driving me crazy. I has been in the ground for 34 days now. It only has 1 pod growing, and no flowers. At least 10 flowers have fallen to the ground since it was transplanted, and at least 10 more fell off, when it was indoors, under lights. Can somebody explain to me why this is happening?
 
dragon49 said:
Thanks for all of the replies.

I'm saving the seeds anyway, and will try germinating a few next year. This plant is driving me crazy. I has been in the ground for 34 days now. It only has 1 pod growing, and no flowers. At least 10 flowers have fallen to the ground since it was transplanted, and at least 10 more fell off, when it was indoors, under lights. Can somebody explain to me why this is happening?
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on the seeds part: separate your seeds from red and green pods, so you can use the ones from the green peppers as back-up in case your baggie of "seeds from ripe big jims" catches fire or falls through a cosmic wormhole. you're gonna get something like 20-30% germination from unripe peppers, and that means you're gonna have to oversow by quite a bit.
 
Well its hard to say what percentage of seeds will germinate from green pods. It could very well be 0% if picked too early. Usually the more mature the pod, the better the chance of germination
As for the flower drop, what are you feeding the plants and how hot are they getting?
 
I haven't fertilized them in a month. I gave them all purpose vegetable fertilizer. They are watered with well water, high in Iron, but otherwise normal. It rarely gets >75 f where my garden is. I know my soil is good, as my tomatoes, cucumbers and assorted other crops are growing just fine.
 
dragon49, from what I know about Big Jims, they were developed for the dry, hotter southwest climate in southern New Mexico. I'm sure they can be grown in lots of places, but they really like hot and dry. I've tried growing them here in Seattle and the pods are not even close to what I get when I go to Hatch. I'm trying to grow 2 Big Jims again this year, but don't expect much. Sorry...I'm a downer.
 
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