Leaves are essential to the plant. Cutting them off would be a bad idea. :)

Rodney

So could anyone tell me approximately how long it takes for one of these to grow peppers? They are just over a month old now.

My guess with the large leaves it's a c. Chinese variety you did not mention what it is. My guess is habanero, ghost, or reaper? Or some other? Your plant is looking great and as the others have said leave the leaves be.

Oh yeah, its a Carolina Reaper.

Usually for super hots from seed to a good harvest, in my experience a good 6-7 months, though you may have a few here and there ripen sooner. I live in zone 7 so that's the usual timeframe for me.

You will see flowers then immature peppers usually develop shortly after the plant puts out its first V split branching

Yeah I think I'm in 6a. What zone map does everyone use here? I googled zone maps and there were a bunch of different ones.

You can use

https://www.gardenweb.com/zoneFinder

Yep, that is a beautiflul looking plant. I suspect that some of those lower leaves will eventually yellow and die off, but just let the plant decide when it is time. Mother nature does a pretty good job if you let her.

Don't get too impatient, they will put out blooms and then pods soon enough. You have a good long growing season and that plant has a great head start.

That's good to hear. Thanks for the advice everyone.

Its a great looking plant off to a good start. I've been growing super hot peppers for several years and sometimes I like to top them so I get much more lower growth and a bushier plant that produces more peppers. Some people are afraid to do this so they back off from topping their plants.

Your plant looks whole lot better then my baby Carolina Reaper. I started growing this plant back in November 2015, It was in a 16 ounce pot and moved it over to a 4 gallon pot. Just by looking at it I know I did something wrong, any suggestions?

In zone 10 the problem is not making the seed sprouting, its more like knowing how to maintain it. X(

All I did was started the seed in a little seed starter kit with these little pucks. Then when they had about 4-6 leaves I moved the pucks into little jiffy pots with jiffy seed starter mix, then I replanted in those big self watering planter pots from Walmart with miracle grow moisture control mix. I have them under 300watt dual spectrum cfl lights for 13hours on and 11 off. And the temps stay between 70-80f.

Blue looks like you need to feed your plant. Look at the leaves and they will tell you what the plant needs. Yellow like that means it needs nitrogen. Once it has nitrogen it will need the other two macro nutrients in the mix (NPK where the N stands for nitrogen). Once it has what the plant needs it will take off.

Looks great....at very worst, it may have a tad too much nutes....you can see a little abnormality in the 3rd true leaf in the foreground....otherwise, don't change anything...looks healthy!

Thanks TCA!

Nice looking plant Bluevano! I'm still waiting on my seeds to get here, then I can start my own Reapers, lol

I went through my super-hot phase. It was fun. But now all of my peppers are mild so I can actually eat them for dinner. If I need more heat, I just use cayenne powder. No peppers go to waste.

With hots and super hots, it's best to make hot sauce and that way you don't waste any of it. I did make a Carolina reaper hot sauce and that one is not for me, it's way to hot, but I do enjoy a ghost sauce, but my favorite and my son's favorite is the chocolate habanero sauce. But it's a good idea to grow milder peppers for the dinner plate. My mild pepper this year is Aji lemon.

Hmm...habjolokia--you've made a fair point. The next time I'm looking to buy seeds, I think I'll give this a try. Thank you for the ideas.

It depends on a lot of things such as climate, nutrients, size of plant, light, etc... I would expect them to open over the next few days. Some will get pollinated, some won't. Then the blooms will fall and at that time you will hopefully see a tiny pod there. I would say 2-3 weeks from now.