Hahaha - when you figure it out let us know! My advice is to pick them green before they turn to mush which is what I have been doing the last couple days before we get down into the upper 20s this weekend. Pepper fruits have a lot of water content in their cells and when that water freezes their cell walls explode and the peppers turn to gooey mush very quickly. Even a light frost can damage the fruit.

I just looked at the weather channel 15 days forecast for Cleveland and it doesn't show anything below 38 so your peppers may be OK for another week or 2. No way to speed up the ripening but they will continue to ripen off the plant once they have started to blush although not as readily as tomatoes.

End of season there isn't really anything you can do. While a much better source of heat might gain you a couple of weeks even a full blown climate controlled greenhouse makes little difference.

Next year doing season extending work at the beginning of the season - much bigger transplants put out in pre-warmed soil and in a protected, controlled environment will gain you more faster.

Beyond constructing a fully controlled environment for them, it is learning to live with the limitations of your zone/climate or moving to a different one and learning to live with its limitations. ;-)

Dave

Not looking at them helps. Grandma used to tell us that a "watched pot never boils." Had she been into growing peppers, the saying could easily have been that a watched pepper never ripens.

Course this late in the year, cooler temperatures and probably more significant, a lack of energy producing light as the days get shorter and the nights longer, will extend the waiting process well beyond what I would call "worth the hassle." At this point, I would just pick them green and hunker down with a big pot of pork chile verde.

While I pick a few green bells for farmers' market sales the colored ones are much preferred and many will turn if allowed time. But i differ with other comments in that I grow a portion of my peppers in high tunnels which provides heat for "Faster" ripening but also extends the growing season at both ends of the season.

Another larger segment of my peppers are now covered with spun polyester row covers and it holds heat in preventing frost damage, often gaining many weeks at the end of the season. Peppers will ripen under the row covers although at a slower rate and that suits me just fine. At this point I've picked some plants clean and folded the covers over the rest of the bed as a triple layer so that I can be confident that 25*F night will not harm my covered plants. Meanwhile my high tunnel peppers are ripening at almost the same pace as the have all summer- some hot ones are going crazy with tree size plants that I just picked a few bushels from yesterday. That is a little secret that few people will reveal.

Hot peppers have traditionally been so prolific for me that I have never had a need to extend the season beyond putting the containers in the garage overnight for a couple weeks for things like habaneros. I typically end up with enough jalapenos and serranos during the regular season that I don't even need to do that.

Bells, you're right are better ripe than green. But there's a reason I don't grow a lot of them, because they are generally low producers with long seasons for ripe fruit. Im not patient and when its pretty much November if I'm still waiting on peppers to ripen, Im certainly not willing to wait until Christmas for a couple red sweet peppers. To me it's just too much hassle for not enough return.

New Mexico and Pueblo chiles on the other hand are MEANT to be picked green and roasted. And I would trade an entire bushel if ripe red bells for just a gallon freezer bag of roasted green chiles. Course, Im originally from Denver where chile verde is as much a part of the Mile High identity as micro brews and the Broncos.

I grow Serranos, which are equally good red or green, just taste different.

I found out, accidentally, that if they are mostly ripened, they will finish after picking.

Just pick them. They'll ripen indoors (as long as you don't refrigerate them). Keep the calyxes/stems, however (those will prevent them from drying out too fast, and should help in the ripening, too). Anything else you might try would possibly take too long, anyway (but I do have ideas for you).

I see lazy_gardens already said pretty much the same thing! :) I didn't used to believe it, but it's true. Peppers are also capable of keeping for a long time outside of the refrigerator, if stored properly.

On another note, giving the plants some extra phosphorus might help. Phosphorus helps with plant maturity (and I imagine fruit maturity to some degree). Phosphorus is less available (and more needed) when it's cold. I wonder if zinc might help, too (probably only if your soil is deficient).

One thing you can do (although you probably don't want to do it) is damage the fruits. Damaged fruits ripen faster; so do fruits with blossom end rot.

More ripe fruits (like black bananas) around your fruit should encourage somewhat faster ripening (and rotting), too.

Don’t pick them. Instead cut the entire plant at the ground and store in bins or whatever you have. Peppers like Serrano will deteriorate quickly after picked but if left on the cut plant thy will last for weeks. Granted, I’ve never done this other bells but it definitely works well for any other pepper.

Wanted to say: “Granted, I’ve never done this with bells...”. I once cut a whole 16ft trailer load of varied peppers before a frost and picked peppers from cut plants over the next weeks for market sales. They may have even ripened a little but probably not enough to meet your needs. It definitely extends the harvest season in a desperate situation.

Thanks for the great info Barrie. I'm going to have to try that next year. I've always just picked the fruit green prior to an eminent frost and I really don't use green peppers much except for cooking.

By "ripen peppers", I assume you mean getting colored peppers to change color -- green to red, green to yellow, and all that. I believe it works like ripening tomatoes, with ethylene gas being an effective ripening agent. What helps tomatoes change color will help peppers do the same. They're both solonaceae. Just put the picked peppers in an airtight bag, ideally with a tomato or a banana, and it should speed up the color change. As noted, refrigeration will slow the ripening process.

Never heard of the pepper in an airtight bag idea but unlike tomatoes I believe room temperature peppers will just get soft and spoil over a few days, maybe faster in a bag.

I've had room temperature peppers (most of those I've tried) keep for months. :) They spoil faster in the refrigerator at my house (if they're piled too high they might keep longer in the refrigerator, though, since that encourages mold easily outside the refrigerator). Ripe tomatoes, on the other hand, are another story here (if refrigerated after ripening, they'll keep for a long time, but left out after ripening, they more often tend to ferment pretty fast, or go bad—within a couple days to a couple weeks, usually).

I've rarely had peppers being stored indoors at room temperature get soft when the spoil. If anything, the normal tendency seems to be that they mold on the inside (starting with the seeds and pith). I don't recall seeing any anthracnose afflict peppers stored at room temperature at my house (but I have seen it commonly afflict refrigerator peppers; I've seen it commonly afflict tomatoes whether refrigerated or not, but it can take longer to afflict refrigerated tomatoes, it seems).

My area is semi-arid, though. I can't speak for peppers in someone's house in a humid area where fungal pathogens might be more rampant.

I have found that thick-skinned peppers without calyxes are more prone to molding than thin-skinned peppers, if left out too long (but you can still leave them out for a really long time).

I've stored many green peppers and many already ripe peppers this way (including those bought from the grocery store). Grocery store peppers perhaps tend to keep about the same length of time whether they're in or out of the refrigerator, but they definitely taste different depending on how you store them; I think they develop more sugar over time if they're not refrigerated (and they don't get those weird lines or dents in them that come with refrigeration).

If you're really worried about how long they'll keep outside the refrigerator, store them sparsely in brown paper bags and/or have a fan going. (I don't recommend relying on central air or such ventilation for a fan; in my experience, I'm not sure that it helps much, if at all.)

Anyway, for thin-skinned peppers, you can generally expect them to dry before they'll go bad, if kept outside the refrigerator, as long as you don't pile them, and maybe even if you do, if you don't pile too high (I don't think they'd dry in the refrigerator, though). A lot of people dry peppers in brown paper bags (at room temperature). I dry seeds that way, too (empty herbal tea bags that you're supposed to fill yourself are also great for drying seeds).

I do make sure to wash and dry peppers before storing them at room temperature (although I'm not sure if it makes a difference).

I've never heard of the pepper in an air-tight bag, until here, either. I
would have thought it would mold, too, but it's probably worth a try to
see what happens. It might depend on how thick the walls are, and the moisture of the pepper.

<I made a makeshift greenhouse with clear plastic and put a heating
pad normally used for starting seeds inside to keep it warm but lows
will be 35 degrees this week and freezing soon after.
What else can I do to make them ripen faster?>

I'm late to the party and if you said what variety I missed it but IMO peppers are one of the many wonderful veggies you can pick/use any time you are ready and in most cases the "pepper" will have more zest/flavor when used before it changes color.

This won't help you for this year, but has helped me successfully grow and ripen peppers. Here in NH I have a shorter season than I had growing up in your area, and for me the trick to getting a good pepper crop is to choose varieties bred for my shorter, cooler season. For years I have grown Ace or New Ace, which are a bit thinner skinned than most bell peppers but produce well for me and ripen many mid-sized peppers. The last two years I have also grown Carmen, which is a sweet pepper that has the elongated shape of a chili but tastes like a regular bell pepper. It has produced lots of large peppers, most of which ripen. In my garden it replaces a similar pepper. Montego, that stopped being produced a number of years ago. I also grow varieties of hot peppers that have the ability to set fruit and ripen here in NH, including Hungarian Wax peppers, which need to have the plants staked to prevent the weight of the fruit from breaking the branches.

My plants are typically set out after Memorial Day and are relatively slow growing for the next month due to cool soil and cool nights, and our first frost typically comes during the last half of October. After over thirty years of trying different peppers and many years of being frustrated by low fruit set and inability to ripen fruit in the standard varieties, growing only those varieties that are bred to be productive in my conditions has been a successful strategy for me.