Chillies

[andrewo]

Thanks

Thanks for this!

Andrewo

[creckless]

Hi Andrew,

I have had quite a lot of success with chillis in the past, and more recently, with sweet peppers. As I don't have an allotment (yet!) I grow them indoors on my bedroom windowsill.

It isn't a particularly warm or sunny windowsill, but I have enjoyed 2 crops from my plants this year! I didn't hold out much hope for the second crop, which was produced from flowers in October.....but much to my delight I now have plenty of tasty red peppers. I can't believe how erll they reipened with such low light levels! They are in 8" pots, and have been fed with liquid tomato feed to encourage fruiting. I have had no problems with aphids or mites on windowsills upstairs....but have given up growing plants on my kitchen windowsill due to constant infestation (even on herbs!).

I am going to try growing some chillies and sweet peppers outside this summer, in my 4 tier growhouse. I'll let you know how they do.

Good luck with your peppers!

Carys

[TrueEnigma]

Chilles

I grew my first chilles two years ago - they were Jalapeno - and I had an abundance of them over a long period, However they didnt turn red just black. Last year I tried a different variety - off the top of my head I can't remember the name but they were very long ones - they cropped but not prolifically and only a few went red but I picked two in December that had turned red! One of the problems I think they had was overcrowding - my very small greenhouse was crammed will allsorts, peppers, chilles, tomatoes, melon, cucumber. I have now got a very large 16 x 10ft victorian greenhouse and plan to grow a range of chilles but not sure which yet. Hopefully they will enjoy the space, that is if I don't get too carried away with the seed catalogues!
When growing chilles and sweet peppers, make sure you pinch out the tips, this should encourage it to bush out and thus provide more opportunity for flowers and fruits to form.
I am also going to sow them in February (normally do it March/April) so they have plenty of time to establish themselves but I will need to protect them until the weather warms up as my greenhouse is unheated.
Interestingly, I grew sweet peppers outside as well as inside two years ago and the outside ones beared less but larger fruit but they seemed to suffer more with pests and rotting (didnt support them very well).
Back to the chille front, a friend of mine has sourced a dedicated chille seed supplier online, I will find out the address and post it here.
Hope this all helps.

[TrueEnigma]

Chillies

Couldn't wait to speak to friend so I surfed the web and found loads of seed suppliers and also a site that puts them all together http://www.chillisgalore.co.uk/index.html I think it will be of interest to both beginners and the confident -
It provides links to a range of sites to buy seeds as well as growing, drying, and using chillies in the kitchen. Worth a visit.

[Socks]

after ordering my seeds this year i got a 10p packet from mr fothergills so i went imediatly to the chillies.

i tried sweet pepers grown in tubs a couple of years ago and looked after them. i got 2 pepers from the bush that were useable, and some that went bad on the bush.

now im going to try chillies indoors, so ordered some cayenne peppers with my spec offer thing. i nearly got some habanero or jalapeno but was warned off as they are v.v.hot!

as for the safe way to rid them of greenfly? i keep them at bay by not only watering the plant but washing them too, if they are established they will need a harsher treatment but i found that simply by washing them thoroughly you will keep the critters at bay for some time.

chris

[Pilsbury]

I grow scotch bonnet, jalapeno and sweet peppers all in pots although mine are only on a table in the garden.
sow them as soon as you can indoors and that way they get a good long season and with mine at the end of the season i prune off all the branches really hard and then put the pot in the unheated lean-to on the side of the house and the plant survives the winter and the next season it is all ready with a root system and stem to get an even earlier start.
last year i got over 50 scotch bonnets from my single plant and about 60 from my 2 jalapenos.

[poultrychat]

I grew peppers last year and they took ages to ripen, summer was gone by the time we were eating them. This year I am trying a different variety (Unicorn t&m) and I'm also doing chilli peppers (mild and meek t&m). I had a bit of a problem with bugs on the peppers, red spider mite but it was mainly my own fault.

[Jaxom]

at the end of the season i prune off all the branches really hard and then put the pot in the unheated lean-to on the side of the house and the plant survives the winter and the next season it is all ready with a root system and stem to get an even earlier start.
last year i got over 50 scotch bonnets from my single plant and about 60 from my 2 jalapenos.

I have never heard of this before? Can this be done with all types of peppers?
I cut mine down this autumn and threw the root ball in the compost bin. If it would have grown like a perennial I am going to kick myself real hard
Jax

[Geordie]

Jack,

If you can get it to survive the winter it is indeed a perennial plant. I have 1 particular favourite that has fruited for the last 5 years.

[andrewo]

Perennial

I never knew this, wow. Going to try this, who knows? It could survive the winters round here. Does anyone know what low temperature they will tolerate before they die?

How did you overwinter it, Geordie?

Andrewo

[Pilsbury]

My unheated leanto gets down to about 3-4 c and it seems fine, I prune it back hard to just after the first branch or leaf joint and then stop watering it about october, it just sits there doing not much for the next 4 months then I revive it with a litre of diluted food from the bottom ( stand it in a bowl and put the feed into that) and put another litre in each day till it stops taking it all in from then on just water as you would normally and new shoot apear from the joints in about a week.
Started mine off this weekend.

[andrewo]

Thanks, will try this, I have a cold frame, so they should be okay in there with some fleece.

Andrewo

[TrueEnigma]

Pilsbury, do you use the diluted feed at full strength?

[andrewo]

Do you tomato feed or another potash mix?

[michael01]

hi all

i planted 3 chilli plants outside about the end of may and had 5 in my greenhouse with my toms. the outside plants grew in to large bushes that i had to keep cutting back and cropped very well still eating them now from the freezer, my greenhouse plants did not do to well ive put this down to poor ventilation (have instaled roof and sidevents now) and inadequte watering (now instaled water from my waterbut) and leaving my dad to lookafter then for 2 weeks didnt help !!!
mike