Jalapeno Plant
The Jalapeño Plant - Easy And Fun To Grow
The jalapeño plant (pronounced halla-peen-yo) makes a great addition to the vegetable garden for several reasons. First of all, once established, it is an easy plant to grow. Second, the jalapeño plant is an attractive plant, usually growing to a height of around 30 inches, and features deep green leaves, white blossoms, and pepper pods that are deep green, turning to red when fully ripened. The third reason for growing a jalapeño plant of two is hot peppers can add a great deal to many different dishes. Jalapeño peppers can be eater raw, added to cooked dishes, or dried and ground up for a rather hot chili powder.
The jalapeño plant is a warm weather plant in the sense that the tomato is a warm weather plant. You don't have to live in a hot climate to grow them, though the plant is native to Mexico, but if the growing season is too short you may not get a good harvest. If there is anything difficult about growing the jalapeño plant it's that the seeds take seemingly forever to germinate, upwards to 2 months, and once sprouted, the seedlings grow very slowly at first. If you don't have plenty of patience, and don't like staring at bare soil week after week, starting jalapeños from seed may not be a good choice. In cooler climates, the best method by far is to purchase established plants from a nursery and transplant them.
Green Or Red, It Doesn't Usually Matter - Three or four jalapeño plants will likely give you all the peppers you want, unless you plan on serving Mexican every night. One or two plants may be enough of that matter, as you can expect in the neighborhood of 25 pepper pods on a plant, with the pods growing to a size of around 3 inches in length. The pepper pods can be eaten whether they are green or red. You don't have to wait until they are red, as the unripe green pods are usually hotter, while the red pods, while still plenty hot, are a bit sweeter. If you're really into hot, pick the pods when green. A jalapeño plant will produce longer if the pepper pods are picked before they reach full size and begin to turn red.
A jalapeño plant, like the tomato, requires full sun and plenty of water from the time it is planted to the time pods begin to appear. After that, the plant should be watered sparingly as too much water will retard pod production.
Making Chili Powder - If you want to grind some chili peppers to spice up you meals, the picked pepper pods can be strung out to dry. They will shrivel and dry on their own accord. If any individual pods become stubborn about drying out, you can always cheat a bit and place them in a warm, not hot, oven for a few hours. Most will probably turn red even though picked when green, but some will insist on remaining green. No problem, as mentioned earlier, greener is hotter.
The heat of the jalapeño pepper is caused by capsicum Capsicum is concentrated in seeds and veins of the pod. If the pod is de veined and the seeds removed, the flesh will still be hot to the taste, but less so than if the seeds and veins are retained. If you are going to crush or grind dried pepper pods to make chili powder be careful not to allow any powder or dust get in your eyes, which can cause a very unpleasant sensation. Even touching your fingers to your lips will give a good indication of what you are dealing with. Preparing the powder in an area where there is good ventilation can help keep you from inhaling the dust, which can also be mildly unpleasant. Of course if you like things really hot this may not bother you, but do be careful about your eyes.
If you haven't yet had a jalapeño plant in your vegetable garden, maybe it's time to give it a try.