we haven't had a real hot start to summer and spring was very mellow - I overwintered a 7 pod, it's got at least 100 little buds and pods on it - 1st day of spring in Oz is September 1, by my reckoning that makes it about 115 days and none are ripe yet though several are at mature size so it should be another 2-3 weeks I reckon.
I understand the 100 days to be from the planting out date so the first 6wks or so when in seedling stage I don't count. short season peppers like Ring Of Fire cayennes are supposedly 60 day-ers, I doubt you could harvest ripe pods two months after setting down the seed regardless of the growing conditions. therefore the 100 day estimate really is more like 150 days if you discount the seed/seedling portion of the growth cycle.
I started to germ seed for about 20 bhut jolokia plants on 5th September. all plants are healthy and most have a lot of buds and some flowers but no pods worth talking about and they are a total of 110 days old (including the 6 wks above). my usual season ends in Sydney about the end of April sometimes I can squeeze a few weeks into May before the plants shut down and I reckon I'll have edible pods by end Feb or mid-March on the bhuts, a total of 180ish days from seed to pod.
my limons, cayennes, big jims are all miles ahead of the bhuts. only the fataliis and to a lesser extent orange habs are as slow to fruit.
EDIT: I suppose I should mention that growing times would most likely vary depending on things like local climate, overnight temps, watering and feeding regime, growing media soil/hydro/container/garden bed/sunlight/greenhouse (any others?) - I'm sure most of you would know this as most of you are better growers than me. I grow in terracotta pots in the backyard. my plants receive anywhere from 6-8 hours of direct sunlight per day which is plenty. I water about every three days unless it gets really hot and we have a lot of 30+ degC days in a row, like what is predicted over the next ten days or so. I have found that the 7pot is very temperatmental when it comes to overwatering, more so than all my other varieties - I will water it with the same frequency but not a deep soaking like I give the others, otherwise I tend to get a bit of leaf yellowing and leaf drop and spottiness which looks like bacterial spot but no ill effect on the blossoms or pods or fruit setting (so far).
