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What to do?

sadams

sadams

Ok, I know there are some ripening threads recently posted, and this one kind of leans that direction too, but is somewhat different.

My habanero plant is really taking off, it has over 80 pods on it, lots of which are mature and close to ripening, but in the last few days to a week there are many new blooms and new little peppers pushing the plant to well over 100 pods if the new ones are included. Attached is a picture of what the plant looks like at every fork..more or less.....do I trim these new pods or let them grow....the first frost here is usually mid Oct and we will be hitting the mid 40s for lows by mid Sept, and I know these new pods likely will not have time to mature and ripen.

So, will the existing, larger pods, grow larger if I cut these little ones off, will there be any benefit if I cut the new blooms and pods off the plant? Or, should I just leave them and take what i get?

Lots of blooms, buds and new little peppers...:-/.
bunches.jpg


Thanks

Shane
 
You never know, they all might reach full size very fast, then they will all pretty much ripen at the same time, and you get more...

Since you live south of me, and from experience growing habaneros outdoors, they should have plenty of time to ripen before the first frost. I'd leave them on there.
 
Thanks Richard, I was kind of hoping someone would say that...this being my first year at this with peppers, and everything else for that matter, I am very very novice. I am still in awe at the number of pepper that one plant has on it....;-0. Any other thoughts or opinions from anyone?

Shane
 
Man, you're in Georgia. Leave them alone and they will come home wagging their tails behind them.

You have plenty of season left and even the newly formed pods should have time to ripen. Let the plant do its thing. :)
 
I'm with SS...here is a pic of an orange hab from December 2nd last year...this is when the first frost kicked its butt...

120208a004.jpg


so I say let them grow...
 
Ok, well I will definitely let them go then....if there is nothing to gain from cutting them off, then its a no brainer...:-). We will see what I have got in a couple months when I get a frost or hit freezing for the first time. Thanks to all of ya for taking time to respond.

I do have one question. AJ, from looking at that pic, it looks like that plant was well exposed to the frost...I am assuming the peppers were not hurt by the frost, only the leaves? I hope to have my little greenhouse up to protect them from the frost hopefully for a while....so if I can find a way to move them into the greenhouse, maybe I will have even longer for them to mature than anticipated. Of course, I have got to get the thing up first lol.

Shane
 
yup...peppers were OK...just a frost, not a freeze...
 
Yep, NORMALLY it is in mid October, last year it was on the 20th of Oct when we hit 35°. The first freeze last year was on Oct 28. Get this, Mt. Leconte in TN in the middle of July had a low of 33 this year....thats at an elevation above sea level of rougly 6,000 ft, so maybe the elevation is the difference....I live at roughly 2000 ft...we hit a low in mid July of 53. As you can see by that elevation does make a considerable difference.
 
Two more months is still plenty of time for new pods to develop and you can always throw a sheet over the plant on nights when you get a frost warning and the plant will be fine.
 
Leave them on there. You can cover your plants at night whenever freezing is predicted and then uncover once the sun comes out. This should get you through December easy.
 
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