Harvesting peppers while they are still green will encourage more fruit production. Waiting to harvest peppers until they are more mature and orange or red will mean less pepper production. As long as you keep picking the fruits when they are still in the immature (or green) stage, the plant will continue to produce more fruit. So you must usually choose between harvesting lots of green peppers or fewer orange and/or red peppers. Most hot peppers are harvested when they turn yellow, orange or red, with the exception of Jalapeno peppers.
You can get around this production and quality problem by planting two pepper plants of the same variety. You can continue to pick the green fruit from one of the plants to encourage more pepper production on that plant. You can wait and harvest the peppers on the other plant when they turn the desired color. This way you have the best of both worlds.
Most bell pepper varieties taste best when they reach fist-size. If you pick them when the are much smaller than this, you might find that they taste slightly bitter.
Hot peppers should be picked when they reach maturity according to the seed packet or seedling tag. If you harvest hot peppers before they reach maturity, they may be overly hot, depending on the variety. Many hot pepper varieties can be harvested while they are still green, as long as they have reached full size. This size depends on the variety of hot pepper.
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