A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 hot peppers w/ no heat

hi, in oct. 2004 my friend gave me a pepper plant from her garden which i placed in a pot and it immediately started growing peppers. i'm not sure what kind of plant it is. Serrano possibly. there weren't many peppers, however i picked the first one off in jan. and just a slice of it was enough to get my friends and i sweating. it had an amazing flavour as well. i used two more in this fashoin. the next few i dried and kept the seeds (which are growing now). so a couple weeks ago i repotted the plant into a larger pot and started getting it used to being outside for the summer. i just picked the last two peppers from the plant yesterday and tried it and there was nothing. no heat, no flavor. it was like eating a bean. if anyone has any idea why, it would helpful. the plant was just growing in my window over the winter. i live in nova scotia, canada. thanks.

Hi Ritchie,
The only thing I could think of was......
Was there other peppers around that particular pepper plant???
When growing pepper plants you have to keep them
seperated, cause they can cross~pollinate...

Sweet ones' can turn hot, hot one's can turn mild.
*from the bees pollinating them back and forth between the other plants*

Weezie

There are a few things that I can think of. How long were the peppers on the plant? Even hot peppers get "sweeter" the longer they are on the plant. Keep a serrano or a jalapeno on the vine long enough, and it will turn red and less hot. Hence those peppers are harvested in the green less mature phase.

Another possibility is that you took care of the plant too well over the winter. The capsicum in peppers is a defense mechanism. When the plant is stressed, the peppers get hotter becuase survival of the seed is all that more important. So the less water the plant gets, the hotter the peppers.

Thanks for the tip PAR.. I'm trying my first hand at some veggies this year, and I have 4 kinds of peppers. (I already knew about the cross pollinating possibility, so still working on how to not have that happen.) I'd have never guessed that more water would make them less hot. Neat.

Meg

thanks for the tips. the pepper plant was by itself. however i did let the peppers rippen red and stay red for a couple weeks, but the really hot ones were red as well though. i did keep the plant watered well, but it did dry out between waterings. not sure. would repotting the plant have had a neg. effect on the peppers? they were ripe when i repotted. there is one more pepper on the plant, it is still green. here's a pic. hopefully....

ps

it's a 12 or 13 inch pot

Holy Schmoley, That's a 12 or 13 FOOT PICTURE !!!
Weezie

Great lookin' pepper plant though........
Very healthy looking!!!

Weezie

That photo does not look like a serrano looks like one of the mild Jaleno's. Par don't know about up north in Ill. but in Texas and New Mexico we pour the water to our peppers to make them hot also plenty of hot sun. Of which we have plenty of. I am Still eating from plants I planted last spring brought in the house for the winter then set back out putting on little peppers like crazy. I keep them as wet as I can but lately has rained a lot so no problem there. My Grandson's girlfriends mother sent me a pepper from Loas and another freind has sent me some carribean seeds all are doing great. I keep one freezer full of roasted peppers all the time. Next fall my sister will send me a bunch from New Mexico from the pepper farms they are fairly hot. Not for the timid stomach . Out there we have roasting barrels in the pepper fields and also by the produce stand to fresh roast for people that do not buy and send to packing plants.