Why Are My Jalapenos Not Hot? How To Fix The Problem

on October 15, 2022

Jalapenos are a popular plant to grow at home at your own place as any peppers that are produced are ideal for long-term storage if they are pickled or frozen. However, in some years you may find that the level of heat that you get from your jalapenos or any other pepper for that matter may vary quite significantly with some plants producing very little heat. So what is the reason for this?

The heat produced by jalapenos can naturally vary due to the chemical composition of particular plants you are growing, however, this can be affected by a couple of factors which are the level of water the plant receives, the timing of the picking of the pepper and also the particular variety of pepper that you are growing.

The most significant factor affecting the heat of a particular variety of pepper is the volume of water that it receives when it is growing. Plants that receive high volumes of water will generally produce peppers that are not as spicy due to the dilution of the active ingredient in peppers which makes them hot, capsaicin. So if you are having an extremely wet year at your house where you grow the peppers you can expect the temperature of the chillies to be a little less spicy.

In my particular case, I had the reverse happen in my garden where I had an extremely dry year and I pickled my jalapenos as I normally do every year and I found it this particular batch was exceptionally hot due to the dry conditions in summer and my general lack of watering of the plants.

The other factor which can have some degree of influence on the heat of the plant is the timing of when you pick the jalapenos. Academic studies have shown that the heat of most peppers peaks when the pepper is changing colour so in the case of jalapenos it is the point at which the green pepper is in the process of changing to a red one. However, this factor is far less significant than variations in the volume of watering.

If you are observing variations in the heat when you prepare the jalapenos this is most likely related to what you include in your dishes as the hottest part of the chilli is actually the pith around where the seeds reside not the seeds themselves.

This area of the plant has approximately 10 to 30 times the amount of Capsaicin present so if you scrape out a central area of a jalapeno the amount of heat that you will get will fall by up to 90%.

How Often Should You Water Jalapenos

The amount of watering that you need to provide to the jalapenos that you are growing at your place will vary significantly depending upon the climatic conditions in which the plant is being grown. Obviously, anywhere that has relatively dry summers will need to be watered more frequently to ensure that the plant has all the moisture that it requires and of course, this will vary depending upon the pattern of rainfall that you have so it is almost impossible to give a hard-and-fast rule for watering.

However, there are a couple of simple tests that you can do to double-check whether the plant has sufficient water for its needs. Generally, pepper plants will do quite well in soils that are relatively moist but not sodden. To check the level of moisture in the soil the easiest way to do it is to place your finger in the soil up to your second knuckle and feel the level of moisture.

If it feels damp then there is no need to water. However, you can do this using a moisture meter as well which are relatively cheap to purchase from somewhere like Amazon.

If you live in a location that has a high level of rainfall or the soil is generally very wet because of its specific location there are a few things you may need to do to adjust soil conditions.

The first thing that I would highly recommend in these types of conditions is to elevate the planting by creating planting mounds which are above the level of the soil. Secondly, the soil itself can be modified using things like sand to improve the drainage of the soil.

Alternatively, if you have consistently produced relatively mild chillies and you want them hotter the other option is to simply pick a hotter pepper variety which will compensate for the high levels of moisture in the area you are growing plants.

How To Select The Right Type Of Chilli For Your Tastes

If you are wanting to grow peppers at home one of the most important things to do is make sure that you select peppers that are appropriate to your personal tastes as not everyone likes very hot peppers. I personally made that mistake when I purchased a Thai chilli plant from the local garden centre and tried it in some of my cooking and found that the chilli was just simply too hot for me to eat. So growing that particular type of chilli was essentially useless because I couldn’t eat the chillies.

So if you are unsure about the heat that you want to achieve, the simplest thing is to purchase chillies and try them in different dishes until you find one that suits your personal taste. If you are purchasing them from the supermarket and using them in cooking it is important to ensure that you save at least a couple of seeds before you use the chilli so that if you like the heat that it produces then you can grow that plant at home in your own garden.

It is important to note that when you do pick seeds from store-bought peppers they need to be from fresh chilli rather than from something that has been pickled or even frozen because that will destroy the viability of the seeds.