Chilli Questions

[northepaul]

Hi all
My daughter grew some chillis from seed and gave two quite good sized plants as a gift. Since I have had them they have flourished. One of them (Alba veriety) has lots of little white flowers and buds.
Question are:

Should I nip them off as its winter? (They are indoors)
If not, will I get chillis or do I need to aid it by pollanating it, and if so, how?

Thanks all

[zazen999]

No, don't nip them off!

Just leave them be. If you really want to, then brush each flower with a paintbrush [keep one paintbrush to each plant if they aren't the same chilis and you want to keep the seeds], and let them do what they do.

I'm going through my greenhouse today and checking all mine, about half are dying and the other half are reflowering. I also sowed a few aroundabout May time, and they are flowering and producing chilis now. And they are outdoors here in the midlands.

[HotStuff]

Chillies are generally self pollinating, but like Zaz suggested you can help them along with a paintbrush. Other people use Q-Tips or even the end of a finger, moving gently from flower to flower. You could even just try giving each plant a gentle shake every now & then.

[northepaul]

Thank you

I will get my paintbrush set down.

Thea

[Llamas]

Some tomato food helps the plant produce fruit, though I've not tried giving it to them in the winter. Hmmmm. Anyhoo, overwintering your chillies will give them a head start next year as well as providing you with one or even more small crops in the winter months.

[sarraceniac]

Some tomato food helps the plant produce fruit, though I've not tried giving it to them in the winter. Hmmmm. Anyhoo, overwintering your chillies will give them a head start next year as well as providing you with one or even more small crops in the winter months.

I've got one (a Cherry Bomb) which has four new fruits on now. One red and ripe and 3 green. Only a few but it's its first winter and although it is indoors in a south facing window, I never did anything except the odd splash of water when it wilts.

[Toleman]

Chilli's require very little nutrient and its often easy to over fertilise. I normally stick to half strength tomato food when they are fruiting and use this once a fortnight.

Over winter I prefer to cut chillis right back to 3" of stem, trim the roots back and place in a 6" pot with fresh compost. They soon start to come back ready for spring. You may find the plant will struggle due to the lack of light over winter so give it the best light you can.

Chris

[annacruachan]

Do they also need warmth, Toleman? I have two cayenne chillies in the conservatory, which gets down to 2 or 3 celsius at night, and more cayennes and an apache type in the green house, which can go below freezing. Are they likely to survive, do you think? I have overwintered the apache in the conservatory before (twice) but have now been bitten by the bug and am overrun with chillies! I have also bought seed for next year - five more different types. don't know where I'll put them all next winter!

[Alison]

I've never managed to get a chilli or sweet pepper to survive any frost and so any that I want to keep are now in my frost free conservatory or the utility room window ledge. Personally I find that unless they're of the sort that take ages to fruit then there isn't very much benefit in keeping them over winter as they can become a bit pest prone if you're not lucky. Tend to keep two or three and leave it at that. I know that Zazen has some healthy ones outside still but round here they bit the dust a few weeks back at the first sign of frost (although maybe I could have saved them with fleece if I'd been bothered)

[Toleman]

They do need heat, try to keep them at least 10 - 14 degrees. A south facing windowsill is best. Outside or the conservatory is too cold.


Chris

[Alison]

They do need heat, try to keep them at least 10 - 14 degrees. A south facing windowsill is best. Outside or the conservatory is too cold.

It depends on what you want, if you want them to continue to grow and produce chillies over winter then you need the extra heat but a conservatory is fine for keeping them in limbo in the same way as you can keep geraniums over winter for example.

[sarraceniac]

I kept some last winter in my cold greenhouse and they kicked back in this year after dying right back so from experience I agree with Alison. This year I decided to keep them going so just moved them into the spare room which is kept at 18oC along with the rest of the house. 7 plants and some new fruits are still appearing, especially the Cherry Bombs which are very profuse. For an experiment I took some seed off one of the Cherries last week and already have full germination (13 seedlings from 15 seeds).

[northepaul]

I have the two mentioned at the beginning, sitting on the windowsill south facing dining room, near radiator, so they have all the light and warmth.

By the way an update - my little alba has 3 chillis growing and lots more flowers! <---feels like a parent-to-be

[nerdgas]

Chilli's require very little nutrient and its often easy to over fertilise. I normally stick to half strength tomato food when they are fruiting and use this once a fortnight.

Over winter I prefer to cut chillis right back to 3" of stem, trim the roots back and place in a 6" pot with fresh compost. They soon start to come back ready for spring. You may find the plant will struggle due to the lack of light over winter so give it the best light you can.

Chris

Hi Chris,

You get everywhere!

:-)