How To Grow Jalapeño Peppers (For Beginners) From Seed To Harvest - Pepper Geek

Hey there, welcome back to Pepper Geek. In today's video we'll be talking about growing jalapenos from seed to harvest. So jalapenos are some of the most popular peppers in the world and with good reason. They're thick, they're crunchy, they're not too spicy but they do add that nice punch of heat that a lot of people enjoy and they're relatively easy to grow and will grow in a variety of different climates. So today we'll show you our process of growing jalapenos in containers, but a lot of the principles will still apply if you're growing in the ground or in a raised bed like you see behind me. If you want to learn how to grow any type of pepper from start to finish, check out our ebook Growing Perfect Peppers down in the description below. In the book we go into great detail about our entire process of growing peppers from starting the seeds indoors to getting them outdoors safely and of course nurturing them through to a bountiful harvest. So if you're interested in learning more about growing peppers, check our ebook out in the description below. So of course you see we have a fully grown jalapeno plant, but let's see how we got here Okay so the first step of growing jalapenos from seed is of course planting your seeds. So here we have all of our seed starting supplies. We have seed starter mix, we have a bowl to pre-moisten the mix in, our seed starting cells and the humidity dome, and then our seed cells themselves inside which are labeled using some tape and a sharpie. We also have a spritzer bottle to moisten the surface of the soil once the seeds are planted, and we have our seed heating mat underneath the seed starting tray. We'll talk about that a little bit later after we've planted the seeds. And of course you'll need your seeds, these are all of our pepper varieties here. And in this video we're actually going to be planting nine different jalapeno varieties so even in the realm of jalapenos you have a lot of selection from heat level to plant size and yield, color even. One other thing to consider before you plant your seeds is when you should be planting exactly and we have a video about that but it's going to depend on your climate. If you're in a warmer location you can typically start a lot earlier in the year, and if you're in a cold place you might have to start a little bit later. We're here in New England, we're in zone 6A, and we start mid-March, late March is usually a good time to plant seeds indoors. One caveat is that if you live in a very cold climate, if you're way up north, you might have to actually start even earlier just to give yourself a little bit of more growing season at the beginning of the year because at the end of the year your season is going to come to an end abruptly and you can't extend it on the back end. Okay so to start out grab your seed starting mix and put it in a mixing container, add however much you think you're going to need to the bowl or bucket, whatever you're using, and then just gradually add some water to it and mix it really thoroughly. Typically you're looking for a consistency that sticks together when you squeeze it but doesn't drip water like a sponge, you want it to sort of be moistened but not soaking wet. But typically these mixes come very dry so it's best to plant your seeds in a slightly moist mix. Okay with our seed starter mix moistened we're just going to start adding it to the seed cells and I just like to do this over the bowl that you mix it in and just go ahead and fill it right up to the surface and press with your finger into each cell like so. I find that this works really well, you don't have to push too hard but you do want to give a little bit of pressure just until it's filled to the surface. Now at this point I want to mention that you could start your seeds in larger containers, we get that question a lot, but we start ours in smaller containers just to save space indoors as you can see beside me here we have a 72 cell seed starter tray and we're going to be starting that many pepper plants today, we're not just starting jalapenos but if you wanted to start in a 3 or 4 inch pot and then transplant that outdoors or into a larger container you could certainly do that. But once these jalapenos sprout they will live in these cells for about 2 to 3 weeks before we move them into those larger containers, 3 and a half inch pots, and then another few weeks before they go into their final planting location. Okay so now the fun part, we are going to plant our seeds, so these are all ready and I have my seeds here and I'm just going to match up the variety with each of the cells. So we have 24 cells and we're going to have 24 jalapeno plants. So we like to put 2 seeds per cell just to guarantee germination happens with at least one seed and if you get multiple you can always separate them out and have 2 plants but we ultimately end up thinning down to 1 plant per cell. And I'll just leave the seeds on the surface there until all of the seeds are ready to go below the surface and then we'll just push them down under the soil and give them a spritz. And this is why it's so important to label ahead of time because once you get the seeds down you really can't differentiate them so, okay, and so once they're in this position we'll just sort of use anything, this is just a pen cap, just push them into the surface about a quarter of an inch, between an eighth and a quarter of an inch. The smaller the seed the less deep you want to go but these seeds are pretty large so about a quarter of an inch is good. Now just cover them up with the surrounding soil like so. Now this cell is planted, last step is to use a spray bottle to just moisten the surface of the soil really well to ensure that the seed below is moist and it remains moist through until it sprouts. That's really important. So whenever you finish planting a cell it's nice to move it aside just so you remember that that cell has been planted. It's so easy to mix things up when you have so many different plants and varieties being planted at the same time. So I'll finish this up and then we can talk about the heating mat. Okay, so with our four seed cells planted all that's left to do is put a humidity dome over them and you can make a makeshift humidity dome, you don't have to use a proper humidity dome like this one. Most seed starting kits or trays like this will come with a humidity dome and it does two things, it traps moisture and it traps warmth. So you really want to avoid the surface of the soil drying out, that's going to be really important, I can't emphasize that enough. You don't want the seeds to dry out while they're trying to germinate. So get it into a warm location, put a humidity dome over it, or just use a plastic baggie or some leftover food containers from to-go food, those work really well. But if you want to take it one step further what we recommend is using this over here, this is a seed heating mat and it's specifically designed for starting seeds that like warmer environments, or if you're starting in a basement or somewhere where it's cool this can really bring the heat levels up. So this is basically just a heating pad but it's attached to a thermostat and there is a probe which measures the temperature, you insert this into one of the seed cells right into the soil, it constantly measures the temperature of the soil and then when the temperature dips below your setting, which we recommend you set at 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the heating mat will come on until the temperature is reached. So you just want to put your seed trays on top of the heating mats and then insert the probe through one of the little holes on the top, and then give it a little bit of slack in there, and then like I said, the probe, you just want to insert into the soil, like that, right into the bottom and snug it up, and there we go! These seeds are in the process of sprouting, it seems a little bit unceremonious but you basically just have to be patient at this point. In my experience, jalapeno peppers tend to sprout pretty quickly if they're fresh seeds, usually within four to seven days. It may take longer if you have older seeds or seeds that weren't stored properly, but just be patient and every day you're just going to come back, open this up, fan it out a little bit, and spritz any of the cells that appear to be dried out. Again you just don't want those seeds to dry out, so the humidity dome helps a lot, but it still can get dry, especially in the winter months when the humidity indoors is really low, you have your heaters running, the air is really dry, so just come back with the spritzer, spritz the surface of any that look dry, and in no time your seeds will be sprouted. So let's come back in a week or so when our jalapenos have sprouted, and we'll take it from there. Okay, so it's been about a week, and our humidity dome is doing its job keeping things very moist, and the heating mat is doing its job as well, you can see the probe in there, and as you can see, many, many jalapeno sprouts, these ones over here are just coming up, we call those hooks, back there and up here, you can see these guys have been sprouted for a day or two, and usually when around 50% of the seedlings have sprouted, we recommend moving them underneath the grow lights. So at this point, these can come out of the humidity dome, we're going to put them underneath grow lights, shut off the heating mat as well, the heating mat is really only for germination, it's not intended for use while you're growing plants. So el jefe was one of the first to sprout here, and you can see they're just searching for light, so we're going to get these underneath the grow lights right away, and give them the light that they need. Okay, so here we are under the grow lights, these have already sprouted, so I'm not too worried about them, but these seeds have not come up yet, so you're going to want to make sure, now that they're out of the humidity dome, to keep these spritzed at least once a day. It's very easy for the surface to dry out, especially when you're running fans like we recommend you do at this point. Up here we have a fan, there's also one on the other side doing the same thing, and it's providing aeration, which is a good thing, it also helps strengthen the stems of your jalapenos when they're young like this, it's really good to have some air flow going over them on a regular basis. And when it comes time to water your seedlings, we prefer bottom watering, and so this is a tray of water, and you can basically just put these seed cells into a tray of water for about 10 minutes is usually enough, whenever they need water, and over time you'll see the surface sort of start to darken as it moistens, and the water is being sucked up into the soil from the bottom, rather than watering over the top, which can damage the weak seedlings. And usually seedlings will need water every three to four days, sometimes a week, but if it's dry in your house again, it's very easy for them to become dried out, so we recommend keeping an eye on the surface just to see if it's drying out and watering as needed. And since there's no nutrients in this soil, this is a seed starter mix, you can start fertilizing about a week after your seeds sprout. And we like using a water-soluble fertilizer like this Miracle-Gro Performance Organics, and mix this up at about half of the recommended strength, whatever fertilizer you use, you should use a reduced strength, and bottom water using that, and that will feed the plants until they're ready to be transplanted. Okay, so a little over three weeks after planting, and our jalapenos are coming along really well here, you can see that the seedlings are about two and a half, three inches tall, and they've sprouted there, true leaves have started to come along. And that's a good indicator that it's pretty much time to move on to the next step, which is transitioning these into larger containers, like this one here, and this is a three and a half inch by three and a half inch by five inch deep pot, and this is a good size container to move into, so that'll be the next step, but before we do that, I like to thin out all of the seedlings but one per cell, so you can see we have two of the same seedling variety here, we want to prune one of those away, so that there's one plant remaining per cell. Same back here, we had both plants sprout, now when it comes to actually choosing a seedling to pluck, it's really up to you, but just try to choose the one that looks more healthy to keep, if you see any sort of leaf damage, or curling, or anything like that, we'll typically pluck that one and leave the more healthy looking plant. So in this case, I have a bit of strangeness on that leaf there, and I'll just pluck that one, and what I do is just kind of pluck up, taking up the root system and the entire seedling, and that can go in the compost, or whatever you want to do with it, and then you're left with one plant in each cell. So I'll do that for all of our jalapenos, and make sure that we have one plant per cell, and then we'll move on to transplanting into larger containers. To transplant into larger containers, pre-moisten some quality potting soil, and fill the larger containers up. Dig out a small hole for the plant's root ball, then loosen the root ball gently and slide the plant out of the seed cell. Then just pop it into the prepared soil. Backfill the soil around it, give it a good watering, and you're done. With the plants back under the grow lights, soon they'll be ready to begin transitioning outside. Once the temperatures are above 65 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, you can start hardening them off. This is the process of gradually increasing sun exposure over a 1-2 week period. Start this on a cloudy day, then add 30 minutes to an hour of sun exposure every day going forward. This slow transition helps prevent sun scald on the tender leaves, don't just bring your jalapenos out into direct sunlight and expect good things to happen. During the hardening off period, the plants will outgrow their 3.5 inch pots. At this point, we'll transplant them into their final growing location. So after a few weeks growing in the 3.5 inch pots, the jalapenos are ready to be transplanted into their final growing container, which is either a container, or into the ground or in a raised bed. But we're using a 5 gallon grow bag, I filled it up with some pre-moistened potting mix. This is Happy Frog from Fox Farm, it's one of our favorite soils, does really well with peppers and any other vegetable really. So you want to fill up your container, dig out a little trench that will fit the root ball of the plant, and then gently massage the bottom of the plant like so, and pull it up sideways to release it, and you'll see a nice root system hopefully like this, where the roots have reached the bottom and the sides, and if they started to grow around that's okay, but if it gets too bad you can loosen up just a little bit to allow those roots to continue. So now we're going to dig that trench out, seat the plant at the same height where it was in its smaller pot, you don't want to go deeper than that, and then just add soil around the edges until it's filled up right to the top. So I'll add another handful or two of soil. So now that's planted, I'm going to add a quick bamboo stake to the side in case there are strong winds, a bamboo stake or a wood stake, whatever you have is a great way to keep the plant supported during a storm or heavy downpours. With your plant transplanted you just want to water it thoroughly, make sure those roots are nice and moistened so that they continue growing out into the additional soil, and at this point regardless of the soil you're using you shouldn't add too much fertilizer, you want to encourage those roots to search for nutrients, continue growing out, and make a nice big root ball, and then you can start fertilizing if you're going to be fertilizing your plants, but we're using a soil that has plenty of nutrients in it so we're not going to fertilize for at least a month or two. So now it's very important that your peppers get full sun, hopefully you've been hardening off in the location where the plants will be, but if you're growing in containers you can continue the hardening off process in their bigger pots, so make sure their final location is in the sunniest place you can, full sun is ideal, sun from morning until night. If you live in a very hot climate, jalapenos are very well suited to those climates, but it may be best to actually give them some afternoon shade during the hottest parts of the day, your plants can end up getting burned, you may end up with some sun scald, even if you've properly hardened them off. You can also use purpose-built shade fabric that is designed to shade the plants but still allow a certain percentage of the light through just to give them some relief from those intense days. So that's it, let's check back in on our jalapeno in a few weeks and see how it's doing. Okay, so we're back at the end of June, it's been about a month since we transplanted into these 5-gallon grow bags, and as you can see the plant is much larger. At this stage we have lots of small jalapenos forming, and even one that's pretty large, it's about 3 inches long, and as time goes on the plant should be growing both larger and more flowers and fruits. Over the first two or three weeks, while the plant was transitioning to this new pot, I was picking off early flower buds, and especially if you started to see any early peppers forming, you want to get those off during that transition period and allow the plant to continue growing larger rather than trying to set fruit when it's still so small. If your plants are still small and stunted, this can happen if you fail to prune off early flower buds, and especially if you let one of the fruits early on start forming, the plant will focus its energy on forming that fruit rather than growing more foliage and more branches, so pick off that fruit if the plant is less than 12 inches tall and focus it on growing foliage. But now it's early summer and it's time for the plant to set fruit, so we're going to continue watering consistently. We don't want to let the plant dry out too much, but we don't want to overly saturate it. It's less of a problem in pots because there's such good drainage by nature, but if you're planting in the ground, you do want to make sure that you're not overwatering. Jalapenos are well suited for hot weather. It's 85 degrees right now, but I'm not really worried. If you do notice the plants wilting in the heat, that's totally normal. It's just a defense mechanism for the plant to get through that hot weather. So the next few months is basically maintenance mode. We're just going to take care of the plants, water consistently, and starting around now, about a month after transplanting, the plants are growing fast, so I'm going to start fertilizing on a regular schedule. For that, you can use whatever you want, but I like using a water-based fertilizer. We use Miracle-Gro Performance Organics with great results, but anything will do. You can use a slow-release granular fertilizer if you don't want to be fertilizing too frequently. Those last up to a month or even longer in some cases. Early spring and summer is also a great time to be watchful for pests. We did have an aphid problem, and we had some caterpillars chewing on the leaves, but thankfully we have flowers planted that attracted beneficial insects. We saw a lot of ladybug larvae and hoverflies and other insects that helped keep those pest populations down. The only time I would recommend spraying pesticides or even insecticidal soap is if the pest problem is totally out of control or if you happen to be growing indoors where those beneficial insects can't get in to help you. I'll leave a link down below with one of the products we like to use if you have to spray your plants. So from here, the plants should continue to get even larger, so let's check back in again in a few weeks when we hopefully have our first harvest. Okay, so we're back here a month later, and you can see how this plant has grown significantly. It's probably about a foot taller than the last time we checked in, and it is of course loaded with jalapenos. And the peppers are green at this stage, and most people will decide to pick their jalapenos before they turn red or whatever their final color may be, and there are many reasons for doing this. Number one is they have a different flavor before they ripen. Red ripe jalapenos have more of a sweet flavor, but the flesh will also be a little bit softer, and most importantly it takes a lot more time for the peppers to get to their final ripeness. Eventually they would turn almost black before turning to their bright red color. Another reason to pick them early is that you'll get more peppers in the long run. This plant has so many full grown peppers on it that it's focusing a lot of energy on producing those seeds and maturing the seeds within the pepper on their way to ripeness. So if I pluck them off now, that will encourage the plant to produce more flower buds, flowers, and eventually more peppers. So it's really a win-win all around. I love the flavor of green jalapenos. Red jalapenos are fine too. You can leave a few on the plant and let them turn red, but it's a good idea to pick at least some of the peppers early to encourage the plant to produce more. Over the last 30 days we did experience a lot of hot weather, and that resulted in some flower drop. So that's really nothing to be concerned about when it's hot. There's really not much you can do. If you're growing in a container like we are here, you can move the plants to a place where they get a little bit of afternoon shade. Afternoon is the hottest part of the day typically, so by giving them morning sunlight they'll have enough energy to photosynthesize and keep growing, but shading them in the afternoon can help cool them off. One other thing to keep in mind is that at this stage the plants will be drinking a lot of water. We've been watering our potted plants every single day. It's been in the 90s, so that's very hot for jalapenos, and on top of that the plants will become top-heavy. So the combination of a top-heavy plant with a dried-out bottom leads to toppling over. So having that stake in there really helps with preventing that, and also using things like bricks or even other plants to help shield them from strong winds will prevent that from happening. So the best time to harvest your jalapenos is after they've reached a full mature size. You don't want the peppers to be in the middle of growing larger. That's a bad time to pick. They're going to be bitter, and the flavor's just not going to be where it should be. Also the longer you let the peppers stay in the plant, the hotter they'll be. Jalapenos typically reach their peak heat level right as they turn red, so if you're looking for the hottest peppers, wait for them to turn fully red and then pick them promptly. But I'm sure that these peppers, which are fully grown and have been for about a week and a half, are plenty hot and will have a perfect delicious flavor. So I'll harvest our first pepper here. This is, again, a Goliath jalapeno, so these are pretty large. So this one's three and a half, four inches long, and I think I'm just going to pick this one first. Jalapenos are easy to harvest. You just kind of pull them upwards and they'll crack off right at the stem. So that's pretty much a picturesque, perfect jalapeno, and we have plenty more on the plant. We have a jalapeno popper recipe, which I'll link below if you're interested in making some delicious stuffed jalapenos. But you can also make a delicious powder out of these. You can smoke them and then turn them into powder. You can make chipotles if you want. Jalapenos are just so versatile and there are so many different things you can do. So of course, we'll leave that up to you. Don't forget to check out our ebook, Growing Perfect Peppers, down in the description below. You can learn more of our tips and tricks about growing peppers. All the details of our process of growing peppers are in the book. It's definitely a great resource if you run into problems along your journey of growing peppers. So I encourage you to check it out if you're interested down in the description. Thanks for watching Pepper Geek, and we'll see you next time.