Peppers
Fresno
Ripens red; the red stage is the point.
- Indoors
- 6 to 8 wk (Jan, again May)
- Outside
- Mid Mar to mid Apr, again Jul 1-25
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Deep weekly soak; even water or the red pods crack
- Harvest
- Jun, then Oct to Nov, red-ripe
Care
- Water
- Deeply and about weekly, in the early morning, kept even; fresno reads a feast-and-famine swing as cracked shoulders on the reddening pods. Mulch and hold the schedule through a dry June.
- Sow
- 2 seeds a quarter inch deep per cell, cut the weaker at the soil line when true leaves show. Spring bench in January; a second bench in May for the fall bed.
- Start inside
- Heat mat at 80 to 90F, sprouts in a week to two; do not skip the mat on a January sowing. Under the lights 14 to 16 hours. Out mid-March to mid-April in 65F soil; fall transplants go out July 1 to 25.
- Feed
- Compost worked in at planting, one side-dress at fruit set, then off the nitrogen. No feeding in the July-August heat; the fall bed gets a light feed when set resumes.
- Ready
- Resist picking green: leave the pods to color red, when the perfume arrives, from June on. Pick the ripe ones and the plant keeps setting in whatever window it is in; the fall crop carries red into early November. Cut, do not pull.
- Trouble
- Cracked shoulders on reddening pods: a feast-and-famine water cycle, keep it even. Sunken dark tip: blossom end rot from swings. Aphids on the shoots: a hard water spray. Flowers drop through the gap and reset when nights cool.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 5–7 gal bag.
- Water
- Daily in summer, twice a day in a heat wave, until it drains from the holes; the even water the pods demand matters double in a bag.
- Feed
- Dilute liquid feed on the watering calendar with a weekly plain-water leach; hold the feed when days top 90F.
- Sow
- One plant per 5 gallon bag at the minimum, sited where afternoon shade falls in the gap.
The jalapeno's fruitier twin, red sooner and more perfumed: fresh-salsa pods off the spring plants in June, then a fall crop that carries red to frost.
Growing
No Texas source names a Fresno of its own, so it grows on the general pepper schedule: January bench on the heat mat, out from mid-March to mid-April in 65F soil, and loaded with pods before mid-June. The pods turn red faster than a jalapeno and keep coloring through June heat; resist picking green, because the red stage is the point of the plant. A May bench transplants July 1 to 25, and the fall crop sets as September's nights cool, carrying red pods into early November.
Varieties
No Texas source names a Fresno variety, so the entry stays generic; seed sold plainly as Fresno is the standard, and the general pepper sheet's culture carries the rest.
In the kitchen
A fresh-salsa chile: char the red pods with tomato and onion for a salsa with fruit behind the burn, or mince them raw where heat wants perfume behind it. The thin walls collapse quickly in a blended hot sauce, which is what red Fresnos do best.