Jalapenos are a popular plant to grow at home in your own garden, however, you may have seasons where the size of the fruit is extremely small and you may be wondering why that has happened. And what can I do to fix it?
Typically, the size of jalapeno fruits is affected by a couple of factors which are the temperature, the amount of sunlight present, and the volume of nutrients available to the plant including water. All of these factors have a significant impact on the growth rate of the plant and therefore the size of jalapenos that you will eventually get.
The biggest factor is definitely the temperature, assuming that you have planted in a full sun location in your garden because jalapenos require significantly more heat than tomatoes to grow relatively rapidly.
If you live in a location that has relatively cool summers such as the UK then it is difficult to get plants to grow fast enough to reach a reasonable size in a single season before the weather begins to cool.
Additionally, the plant may also be tricked into ripening the fruit too early rather than increasing i’s size if there is significant variability in the weather such as rapid cold snaps.
The second major factor is the amount of nutrients that are present for the plant to access. Generally, periods, where there is less water around, will result in significantly smaller jalapenos that are also significantly hotter than what you might expect as a result of a lack of water.
How To Maximize The Size Of Your Jalapeno Plants?
There are several strategies that you can implement that will increase the chances of having larger jalapenos on your plant. The first important factor is to ensure that your plants get started relatively early in the season, undercover in a seed tray as that will maximize the length of season for the plants.
Secondly, it is important to prepare the soil adequately before you put the jalapeno plants into the ground. This can typically be done by either adding additional compost or even manure to the soil before planting.
In addition to this, it is important to ensure that you plant the jalapenos in a sheltered location with a favorable microclimate. Even just shielding the plants from cold winds will increase the temperature that the plant is exposed to. This can be further aided by placing a cloche or row cover as that will usually improve the temperature by at least 5 to 7 degrees and often much more than that.
However, it is important to note that cloches should really only be applied in the early parts of the season when the weather is cooler because temperatures in the mid-80s and upward can produce incredibly high temperatures within a small area of a cloche or a row cover so you do need to be careful to remove the cloches once the weather is starting to improve.
If you don’t have a cloche at your place they can easily be made from old milk cartons or soft drink bottles by removing the base and lid at the top of the container to provide ventilation. I personally prefer to use old milk cartons that have frosted plastic as that reduces the chance of the plants getting too hot.
The next important element of ensuring that you get reasonable sized jalapenos is to water regularly to ensure that the soil remains moist throughout the season as that will encourage an increased fruit size. This is particularly important if you live in a region that is prone to having extremely hot spells where the temperatures reach close to 100F.
Additionally, the other thing that you can try if you feel that you have met all of the other conditions above is to reduce the number of fruits on the plant when growing them which will encourage the plant to concentrate its efforts on developing the remaining fruit.
Do Jalapeños Get Hotter The Longer They Are On The Plant?
Given that most people will tend to leave the jalapenos on the plant longer when the fruit is relatively small you may be wondering what happens to the heat of the jalapenos. There has been a 2019 academic study that looked at the level of capsaicin in hot peppers which is the active ingredient that creates the heat. It found that the maximum level was reached when the fruit began to change color from red to green.
It was observed that the initial levels of capsaicin in the fruit were less than 10% of its peak level when the fruit was 20 days old, however, that increased 10-fold over the next 20 days to reach the peak value just at the point the fruit was changing color. However, once that peak has reached the level reduced by 40% in the subsequent 40 days.
So leaving the fruit on for an extended period of time usually will result in the heat falling. However, if the reason that the fruit is small is because of lack of water you probably won’t notice the difference because lack of water results in extremely hot chilies.
What To Do With Small Jalapeños?
So what do you do with small jalapenos when you have them on your plant? Generally, what we recommend that you do is to pick the jalapenos as soon as there is a hint of a color change as that will maximize the flavor and heat of the fruit.
They can still be used in dishes as you would normally, however, I would be a little bit careful about how much you add because they may be extremely hot compared to what you are normally used to.
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