A pot of jalapeños on your patio – or kitchen window – will not only spice up your meals but will be a beautiful riot of color!
Growing jalapeños is a truly rewarding growing project anyone can do with or without a garden.
If you are thinking about growing jalapeños this summer, this complete growing guide will give you all you need to know in order to enjoy prolific crops of jalapeños in a pot or container this summer.
What is it about Jalapeños?
Even the name of this traditional chile pepper variety itself expresses heat and spice and pleases many eaters in many dishes.
The name “Jalapeño” is derived from the city of “Xalapa”, the capital of Veracruz, Mexico, where this chile is originally from.
This variety of Capsicum annuum grows green, and has a medium heat range of 6,000 to 8,500 Scoville units.
Per season, the plant may yield 25 to 30 of these range of sizes, chunky peppers that grow to a size of about 5 cm long.
How to grow Jalapeños from seed
It requires more time than purchasing a plant, but starting your pot of Jalapeños from a seed is more economical, and, in our opinion, much more enjoyable.
Although it will take more time, and Jalapeños are slower to germinate and grow compared to other peppers.
When should I start growing Jalapeño seeds?
So that your young plants are ready to be transplanted in the warm weather of summer, you should start to plant those seeds at least 2 months before the last frost.
Germinating Jalapeño seeds
Place Jalapeño seeds in their seed trays, which contain compost rich in nutrients. You could also use small pots or the bottoms of plastic bottles, which you cut off.
Now follow the process:
- Before you plant Jalapeño seeds in the soil, saturate the soil with water.
- Add two or three seeds to each container. The seeds should be planted ¼ inch (0.63 centimeter) deep. The seeds should be completely covered in soil.
- Gather the pots in a fairly warm, but very dark place for germination. The soil should be kept moist until germination!
Additionally, you can support the seeds in retaining warmth and moisture by simply placing a polyethylene bag with a hole or opening over the pots.
What Can You Expect? The germination period for Jalapeño seeds is generally anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks.
Caring for Jalapeño seedlings
After your seedlings have emerged, you’ll want to grow them inside until they’re robust enough to transplant into their ideal pot.
Put them in a warm place where they will receive light and have temperatures above 65 °F (18 °C). The more light the better! Jalapeño seedlings and young plants prefer at least 14 hours of light a day.
If you have sown multiple seedlings in the same pot, you will have to thin the seedlings out so that one of the stronger seedlings can take over and grow. Thinning can be done once the first leaf pair is present.
Remember – Keep the soil of the seedling moist and make sure there are drainage holes in the pot so that the growing plant can develop its roots.
Transplanting Jalapeño seedlings
The little Jalapeño plants should be moved into bigger pots and more substantial pots.
Make this a gradual process, moving them in succession into larger and larger pots.
If you’re going to do this, prepare your pots and containers with quality compost, watered lightly, and move the jalapeño plant over with the whole pot of soil into the new larger pot.
You’ll want to avoid damaging the root system of the Jalapeño plant and avoid compressing the soil too much when re-potting.
Scallion or Terracotta is a great option for a chili pot as it moderates moisture in the pot and holds heat wonderfully.
Hardening off Jalapeños
If you plan on growing your Jalapeño plants outdoors you will want to “harden them off”.
This involves placing them outside for longer periods of time, then taking them back indoors.
This process allows the plant to adjust to being outside in stages.
Caring for Jalapeño plants
Maturing Jalapeño plants require the proper conditions and care to yield for you.
Where you put your pot, make sure your plant receives:
- Sufficient sunlight: Jalapeño plants appreciate 8 to 10 hours of sunshine per day, so anticipate where you’re going to reserve a sunny spot for your pot!
- Moist soil: to properly water your Jalapeño plants the soil need to be moist (keep in mind if water the plants will become overly saturated). Most every plant needs watered every other day (one day it’s thirsty, the next day it has access to water).
- Feed a drawlute fertilizer: instead of maybe giving your plants a good concentrated dose of fertilizers why not dilute your fertilizers and feed once every third watering. Make sure you are only fertilizing until roughly two weeks before you begin to see the chilies come through.
When are my Jalapeños ready to pick?
Jalapeños require approximately 80 to 120 days to mature.
When harvesting you must be mindful of timing because you want to pick the Jalapeños when they are a traditional green.
If they stay on the plant (up to about 120 days) they will continue to ripen turning yellow or red but harvesting them in green stage encourages the plant to fruit more!
Harvesting Jalapeños
Harvesting jalapeños doesn’t require any special tools!
Simply pluck the green peppers off and as you pick, more blossoms will be forced, and they will grow into new jalapeños.
If you stay ahead of harvesting, you will have an endless supply of these little spicy packages!
…and the shortcut. Buy a chilli plant!
One option for a more low-maintenance way to grow some chilies, is to buy a young Jalapeño chili plant, and put it in a trendy container or pot of your choice.
Jalapeño plants can be purchased as young plants from plant nurseries, garden centres and even some grocery stores.
Once you have planted the plant into its new home, the same care and harvesting applies.
Using your Jalapeños
Jalapeños are a healthy food, with a plentiful amount of vitamin A and C.
They can be used in a wide array of dishes or strung and dried, so you can use them later in the year. Here are some traditional jalapeño recipes:
- Pickled Jalapeños here
- Jalapeño poppers here
- Jalapeño chicken Here
Rounding up
Home-mined Jalapeños will bring an extra kick to your life and cooking!
This is an easy and inexpensive way to grow something for the whole family to partake in.
And if you’re a sucker for plant pots and containers types, you can fill your stash with productive plants!