Will Ghost Peppers Ripen Off The Plant? - Sandia Seed Company

Skip to content

Order a Seed Catalog & get a packet of FREE SEEDS!

50% Off Seeds + FREE USA SHIPPING on orders over $30

🌱 GET 10% OFF WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE!

Item added to your cart

View cart Check out Continue shopping

Subscribe for discounts, free growing tips + more recipes. Read all Posts »

What can you do with peppers that didn't have time to ripen? If I pick peppers when green, will they ripen off the plant?

If you have to pick your hot peppers early – including Ghost Peppers or the Yellow Carolina Reapers or Habaneros – due to impending cold weather, don't worry! Often, many peppers do continue to ripen on their own on the counter after being picked. It can take a week or so, but it's possible if the peppers are close enough to ripe when picked. Check them to make sure they aren't getting soft (you don't want moldy insides!) Often, peppers picked at the end of the season will ripen to their final color in a few days at room temperature on a countertop or bowl. Ideally, of course it's best to leave them on the plant until they turn their final color, but sometimes you have to pick if snow or hard frosts are in the forecast.  This Yellow Carolina Reaper, shown above, was totally green when we picked it before an early snowstorm. It was likely close to getting ripe, but the early cold cut off the opportunity for it to stay on the plant. We thought it would just stay green, but over the week it turned completely yellow, starting with the shoulders, and then working it's way down to the tail. Check out the final yellow color below, we ended up drying it in our dehydrator for future salsa use. When cutting it, it had a juicy sweet spicy aroma, so despite ripening fully off the vine, it still has the burning heat and flavor we were hoping for! 

 

Got Green Green Chile?With New Mexican Green Chile varieties, don't count on the green pods turning red after picking. A few may if they are close enough to ripe, but after picking green chile doesn't ripen much more.  So we don't advise trying to dry green chile, or make Ristras from green pods (use only red, mature pods), as most green pods may not be mature enough to turn red, and these green chile will instead shrivel and turn whitish – not a pretty sight! It's best to use green chile for roasting! 

Alternatives to Picking Peppers before a Frost:

You can also pick peppers early by cutting the stems long enough to place in a bucket with water. Trim all the excess branches and leaves, and watch the peppers ripen on the vine indoors. 

Grow peppers in containers and move them in!

Growing peppers in containers or pots is a great way to grow in short-season climates so that you can easily move them indoors or to a protected location if cold weather, frost or snow is expected. Most peppers don't like temperatures below 50˚F, so it's wise to move them indoors if you have cold nights in the spring or fall. And, if a frost is expected, all peppers will suffer and perish under 32˚ F – so growing peppers in pots allows you to move them indoors to a warmer location to spare them from an early demise. Here are our favorite hot peppers to grow in containers »

Green Peppers still taste good!

Green chile peppers can still taste good in hot sauces or dried and used as powder. In fact, green chiles and green peppers are often eaten this way. Most peppers will eventually turn red (or the color of their full ripened state, including whites, yellows, oranges, reds, purples, browns!) Colored peppers that are picked green won't have the full normal ripe flavor as if it ripened on the plant, but they usually still have plenty of heat and enough flavor that we always use them up! If you're picking peppers at the end of the season, and they've been on the plant for several weeks, they are likely close to ripe and full of flavor, so don't despair!

Here are a few ideas of what to do with unripe peppers:

• Make green sauce or salsa verde • Chop peppers and add the to stir fries or fried potatoes• Add to chile stews or soups • Make a spicy salad dressing• Make Fermented Hot Sauce

Can ripe bananas help ripen peppers? 

Unlike tomatoes, putting a ripe banana in with unripe peppers will not help them ripen faster. Bananas emit a plant hormone called ethylene which can aid green tomatoes to ripen off the vine, but the closely related chili peppers show no such effect. 

Looking for the fastest growing peppers or short-season peppers? 

Sandia Seed has some of the fastest growing pepper seeds, check out our top fastest growing pepper list of seeds we carry.  We also carry a wide variety of short-season tomatoes, too, for those of you gardeners who are growing in short-season climates. Back to blog

Subscribe to our email newsletter for more growing tips:

We send seed discounts, growing tips, and recipes about once a month (don't worry, we won't bombard you with weekly or daily emails!)

Email

Blog posts

View all

• 

  How do you make Paprika? (homegrown from seeds!)

  February 26, 2026

  Making Paprika is a lot of fun! This year ‘Making Paprika’  is a great theme for a pepper garden. Paprika powder is made from red peppers. It can be sweet,...

  How do you make Paprika? (homegrown from seeds!)

  February 26, 2026

  Making Paprika is a lot of fun! This year ‘Making Paprika’  is a great theme for a pepper garden. Paprika powder is made from red peppers. It can be sweet,...

• 

  Hot Sauce Ingredient Ideas

  February 24, 2026

  Hot Sauces are made from lots of ingredients beyond just hot peppers! Many recipes include fruit, juice (lime, lemon), different types of vinegar, ginger, mustard seeds, carrots, garlic, onions and...

  Hot Sauce Ingredient Ideas

  February 24, 2026

  Hot Sauces are made from lots of ingredients beyond just hot peppers! Many recipes include fruit, juice (lime, lemon), different types of vinegar, ginger, mustard seeds, carrots, garlic, onions and...

• 

  Beginner‑Friendly Hot Peppers

  February 23, 2026

  At Sandia Seed we LOVE peppers, and we enjoy helping people grow their own peppers from seed! We think some of the best peppers for beginners to grow are the fastest...

  Beginner‑Friendly Hot Peppers

  February 23, 2026

  At Sandia Seed we LOVE peppers, and we enjoy helping people grow their own peppers from seed! We think some of the best peppers for beginners to grow are the fastest...

1 / of 3 View all

Our Favorite Salsa & Chile Recipes

CHILE RECIPESSALSA RECIPES

Fastest Growing Peppers

These are the fastest growing peppers that you can grow from seeds...

Fastest Growing Peppers

50% OFF SEEDS

Check out our 50% off Seed Discount deals below. Signup for our...

50% OFF SEEDS

Best Peppers for Containers

If you want to grow peppers in containers, below are our top...

Best Peppers for Containers

Let customers speak for us

from 1385 reviews Buck Dharma approved!

So, as a life long BOC fan and an avid gardener who loves the quality of seeds I’ve always received from Sandia Seeds. I just had to have this shirt. It rocks! I ordered a couple more for some fellow BOC fans as well. Great quality and the graphic is outstanding!

Jens Pedersen 12/27/2025 Don't Fear the Reaper T-Shirt Very Productive and HOT!!

I'm going to grow these every year, they are HOT!! They make great poppers and salsa. Very productive, easy to grow, quick germination and fast growing plants. Thank you for the stellar seeds.

Samuel 10/17/2025 Jalapeño Orange Spice NuMex Seeds - Ultra-Hot and Flavorful Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

I planted several cultivars from wholesale seed. These were prolific. See all that RED (and green)?!? Looking forward to harvesting in a few days. Thank You Sandia Seed!

Josh F 10/17/2025 Hatch Red Medium - Joe E. Parker Chile Seeds - Popular Heirloom with Great Flavor Jalapeño M

I pretty much use Sandia seeds exclusively! A few years ago I just happened to order your Jalapeño M. To me it's the perfect Jalapeño! Really nice size! Perfect heat for what we like! Wonderful flavor with a meatyness that's perfect for many different uses! I make my own Sriracha so I wait for them to turn red. They're one of my base peppers for my sauce! I praise them to all my personal friends and to members of groups that I belong to!

Bill Kozma, Solvang, Ca. 10/15/2025 Jalapeño M Pepper Seeds - Popular Heirloom with Flavorful Heat Prolific pepper

Plants each produced dozens of beautiful peppers. Still going strong in October in Virginia

Mari Woehrle 10/13/2025 Big Jim Legacy Pepper Seeds - Flavor & Heat - A True New Mexico Chile High producers

Serrano Hidalgo Seeds fromSandia Seed produce even in the HOT drought of central Illinois this year! I love adding a little Mexican kick to my salsa but also tossing these on the grill! They have great flavor and produce all summer long!

Angela McCabe 10/10/2025 Serrano Hidalgo Seeds - Hot Mexican Peppers - Salsa & Pickling NH, USA in 5 gallon buckets

Quintessence of pepper flavor. Productive plant. Definitely will grow again.

M J Dubois 10/08/2025 Española Improved NuMex Chile Seeds - Robust Flavor and Early Maturity Dynamite xx Hot peppers, 4 heat lovers only!

I had looked high & low, and searched the web with many word combinations ‘looking’ specifically for my favorite chili, the Dynamite xx Hot… so I could grow my own. The peppers were sold in Colorado at select places during roasting season, but you couldn’t buy seeds for them… anywhere! Finally, as luck and persistence would have it, I discovered Sandia Seed Company. Thank you Sandia! I planted them and had a great crop this year. I plan on growing them every year as well as trying some of their other seeds,

Linda O 10/06/2025 Dynamite Green Chile Seeds - Extra Hot Variety at 12,000 Scoville Prolific Peppers!

There's just something fun about growing a jalapeno that is light enough in color that some people think it's a banana pepper. LOL! I picked these just for color variety, and I'm very pleased that my plants have been loaded with them all season! We donated about 50 lbs of mixed peppers this year from our garden and I still had enough to freeze some and can more jars of recipes than we'll probably be able to use before next season. All my peppers were from Sandia Seed Company. I've never had such great pepper production before using these seeds!!

Cmartcookie 10/06/2025 Jalapeño Jaloro Pepper Seeds - Disease Resistant and Medium Heat Big Jims

Excellent peppers, large and meaty. Easy to grow from your seeds.

S Latta 10/04/2025 Big Jim Legacy Pepper Seeds - Flavor & Heat - A True New Mexico Chile Tasty and prolific

This spinach germinated well, and produced way more spinach than I'd initially expected. It grew really well, was slow to bolt in the summer, and has a really nice mild flavor for salads or steamed.

Melissa B 09/29/2025 Spinach - Bloomsdale Spinach Seeds - Easy to Grow, Popular, and Nutritious Beautiful Reds

Love this Hatch variety chili, next best thing to living in New Mexico! Yep, they grow in Oklahoma too!

Buster Holzer 09/27/2025 Hatch Red Medium - Joe E. Parker Chile Seeds - Popular Heirloom with Great Flavor Awesome peppers!

This was my first time growing these and I will definitely be growing them from now on. Great germination and very sturdy plants that have withstood some really high winds. Huge long peppers that are excellent green or red, very easy to peel skin.

Dre Snow 09/25/2025 Hatch Green Medium - Big Jim Chile Seeds - Nice Heat & Great Flavor Wow! BIG JIM PEPPERS

Growing these in Florida, (Recent transplant of NM). Lovely peppers. Took a couple weeks is all and wow! I have several budding; 2 large enough to nickname. They're still in their infancy, but I can tell they are going to be great! Love the seeds!

BIG MARK 09/24/2025 Big Jim Legacy Pepper Seeds - Flavor & Heat - A True New Mexico Chile Excellent!

Prudens purple was huge, productive, and delicious. Very crack resistant. Amazing!

Jamie 09/24/2025 Pruden's Purple Tomato Seeds - Old Family Heirloom - Sweet Taste - ON SALE

Subscribe & Get 10% Off Your First Order!

Get our emails to hear about new seeds, growing tips, discount codes & contests:

Email