Hello! I have a Carolina Reaper plant that is still producing small peppers, but my early, full size peppers haven't ripened yet. There is no chance the small peppers will grow and ripen in time (zone 6a).
Is there any benefit to snipping off the small peppers that definitely won't ripen in time? Would that encourage the plant to focus on ripening the larger peppers it already has?
by MonstrousJohnson
5 Comments
That is a good question…
I would also like to know seeing that I am a newbie
That’s what I do. Pruning is a powerful tool for nutrient redirection.
It won’t make them ripen faster, but it will save them. I’d rather eat or make sauce with immature peppers than let them rot on a dying plant. Often times if they already started to change color, they will ripen on the counter, out of the cold. Im in 4b and I’m gonna pick everything between this week and next week
Leave the small peppers alone. I am in 7B and my plants produce well into October.
Move it inside with a grow light and some fertilizer.