How do you harvest chillies?

[mummybunny]

Hi,

Might be a silly question but how do you harvest chillies when there ready? Do you cut them off pull them off i just have no idea and cant find anything telling me how to do it correctly?

Thanks Lucy

[mummybunny]

[tim]

I don't think there is a correct way.

We just break them off, but cutting should be fine, too.

[ceres]

Snip them off with scissors or secateurs.  If you want to string them up to store, leave a short length of the stem attached. 

[mummybunny]

Thanks  ;D

[chriscross1966]

If it's a hot one then wearing gloves.... made that mistake with some habaneros..... found every little cut on my hand from a mornings weeding.....the agony was exquisite....

[Gobby]

Not as bad as my favourite of wiping my streaming eye's after collecting some bhut jaloki....you could hear the scream from down the road....   :'(

[Biscombe]

Be careful, some plants can have quite brittle stalks, so with an over enthusiastic yank you could snap off half the plant!

[amphibian]

i don't cut them off, I gently take hold of the stem at the fruit bearing node and gently lift the pepper up and back, it just slips off the plant, leaving no stalk left in the node and no serious wound.

It's an action very hard to describe, but it is similar to the one I use to harvest tomatoes, well the ones that have a knuckle thingy.

[saddad]

Not as bad as my favourite of wiping my streaming eye's after collecting some bhut jaloki

Just don't pick your nose or relieve your self!!  ;D