Chillies - Growing and Over wintering 2020

[Scarlet]

Regarding growing on, I am going to send a fair few in to my parents who can probably fit 30 in my old bedroom window / kitchen window until April, the rest will have to grow on my own windowsill, luckily I have a pretty light gardening room which has a work top right next to the window with room for maybe 60 more mature plants. Other than that, I will be visiting the in-laws for space haha
LD

How big are your windowsill? These plants can get to about 2ft wide each of its in a decent size pot and fed well. Much better to have a few well looked after plants than several crammed stretching for light.

[Mitzi]

They're not likely to be 2ft wide by April, though.

[Scarlet]

They're not likely to be 2ft wide by April, though.

No they aren't but you'd need quite a lot of greenhouse space for that amount of plants? And as it's all the same variety you would get better results with 20 decent plants that are in good sized pots, had good light in the early months than treble that number, struggling and cropping just a handful of pods? That could really put a beginner off.
Potting on in excess of 100 plants is not a quick task.

[Scarlet]

I have a heated propagator, and I do have one grow light, but it's currently being monopolized by my citrus plants.
Think I'd best wait until mid February.

I start most of mine in Feb. What I would say is that if you plant them in the ground it might delay fruiting? I have planted in the greenhouse border and in pots and the potted ones crop first. Maybe worth doing some in pots and sinking in the ground and some straight in the ground to see if you get any difference?
The bonus would be if the summer isn't great the potted ones can be dug up to carry on indoors to crop a little later and you would maybe have the option to overwinter one or two.

[Mitzi]

I'm hoping to grow Nigel's Outdoor this year (seeds from the seed circle a year or two back) and might try one in the ground plus one in a pot. Will be sowing it next month.

Of my seeds sown at the end of December only the IC2 have germinated. Nothing else. To be fair, that's the one I would have chosen if I'd have known only one would grow. Nine out of ten seeds sown have germinated. I've pricked out six of them and am contemplating what to do with the other three.

Need to sow the next batch; maybe the pubes.

[Scarlet]

I love Nigel's Outdoor. jack army grows it. It's a heavy cropping plant with enough heat without ruining your chutney

[Small pumpkin]

I've pricked out six of them and am contemplating what to do with the other three.

You could always start a chilli seedling swap









I won’t be participating

[FromYorkshiretoBucks]

Scarlet - luckily I have my greenhouse here and 4 cold frame / greenhouse hybrids I’m currently building and my dads greenhouse space.

An update from my side, I currently have 72 healthy looking SB seedlings germinated (20 maybe ended spindly (think fishing wire) and died off in the terminator - the rest never germinated)

8 choc habanero germinated and 6 Lemon drop.

Got a grow light arriving this weekend and going to look at repotting everything into singular pots soon. Do people usually wait for 2nd set of leaves first?

In a way I’m kind of glad a lot of the SBs didn’t germinate. As I’m addicted to buying seeds (usually after wine) I’ve also ordered some Jalapeño and Red Habaneros to get started in a few weeks once everything else is reported.

I do have a feeling I will be walking the the streets of Buckinghamshire looking for people who are having old wooden windows removed at this rate to build more cold frames!

[Small pumpkin]

Got a grow light arriving this weekend and going to look at repotting everything into singular pots soon. Do people usually wait for 2nd set of leaves first?

Mine go into individual pots as soon as they come out of the propagator.

[FromYorkshiretoBucks]

It looks like I might be busy this weekend!

[Philthy]

Greetings chilli heads, belated Happy New Year

I'm not growing anything, as I decided to have a year off, first since 2006.
Relentless greenfly and erratic weather these past two seasons, and the subsequent mediocre crop last year particularly, have taken a lot of the shine off the hobby. I didn't have pest problems to this degree five years ago so not entirely sure what has changed, just got theories at this point. Tried numerous fixes, though each seems to incur other problems so no one solution just yet. Either way, not going to dwell on it.
No plants overwintered - washed my hands of them (literally) and left them to their fate in the GH in the autumn.
Quite refreshing actually. I shall instead focus my energies on the numerous DIY projects that until now were always sidelined as soon as the days started lengthening...

[FBI]

I work for a Famous Large Heritage Organisation (:-D) and the gift shop at my place was chucking out some unsold Christmas gift sets - the sort where you get three crummy little pots, a bag of rubbish compost and three tiny packets of seed, in this case Cayenne, Jalapeno and Habanero. I grew a handful of each and brought them indoors for the winter from the greenhouse so they can sulk (and in one case die) in the window of our loft conversion.

Having completely forgotten they were there, I've just been up and picked the semi-dried fruits off 'em...

The other thing I'd forgotten was that, when I'd brought them in from the GH, I'd intended to re-label them as woodlice had eaten the labels, but I never did. So I have, effectively, just presented the OH with a Russian Roulette of chilli.

And guess what's on the cooker tonight? :-o

[Small pumpkin]

Mine go into individual pots as soon as they come out of the propagator.

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Forgot to say. The compost in the pots has been in a heated propagator before putting seedlings in.

[Small pumpkin]

I work for a Famous Large Heritage Organisation (:-D) and the gift shop at my place was chucking out some unsold Christmas gift sets - the sort where you get three crummy little pots, a bag of rubbish compost and three tiny packets of seed, in this case Cayenne, Jalapeno and Habanero. I grew a handful of each and brought them indoors for the winter from the greenhouse so they can sulk (and in one case die) in the window of our loft conversion.

Having completely forgotten they were there, I've just been up and picked the semi-dried fruits off 'em...

The other thing I'd forgotten was that, when I'd brought them in from the GH, I'd intended to re-label them as woodlice had eaten the labels, but I never did. So I have, effectively, just presented the OH with a Russian Roulette of chilli.

And guess what's on the cooker tonight? :-o

They are 3 very different and fairly easily identified pods. The Russian roulette shouldn’t be to bad.

[Scarlet]

Forgot to say. The compost in the pots has been in a heated propagator before putting seedlings in.

Man up! I put mine in the warming oven of the Aga!!