Chillies - growing and overwintering 2024

[Bren In Pots]

A new thread for a new year.

Here's last years for comparison :-

Chillies - growing and overwintering 2023 - The Grapevine (growfruitandveg.co.uk)

[peanut]

Sowed Trinidad perfume, lemon dream, spangles and cayenne peppers today.

[Andraste]

Gave my attempt at overwintering Chilli 'Eureka' a trim yesterday - think it's dead tbh but will persevere for a while yet. I saved seed anyway which I'll sow at some point in the next few weeks

[nick the grief]

I've got
Anaheim
Basket of fire
Ohnivec
and Golden Cayenne to try this year.

I used to grow Joes Long and harvest a bagfull take them the work and give them to a friend and his wife used to use them in the curries she made and I used to get a bag ful of home made Samosas every couple of months ... worked well till we both left and he lives about 40 or 50 miles away now and we lost touch

[Containergardener]

My cayenne died in this recent cold. But I have more sown for this year (cayenne).

[Andraste]

Commiserations Containergardener I'm still deluding myself about our plant so gave it some water this morning lol

[Andraste]

Put some Chilli 'Eureka' seed to chit this morning (home-saved seed so want to be sure they're viable). Still no sign of life on last year's overwintering plant.

[Andraste]

The second of the seeds had chitted yesterday (the first a few days before), so they're now in little pots with sandwich bag hats on the windowsill. Still hoping for a few more to sprout for friends but at least we know we have the two plants we want for our kitchen windowsill this year

OH has however insisted that he also wants at least one Cayenne this year so I'm off to put a few to chit

[Containergardener]

How do you chit them? On kitchen paper?
Mine still haven't appeared to germinate so need to get some seeds or try supermarket ones we have .

Ooops just bought some other sorts

[ameno]

How do you chit them? On kitchen paper?
Mine still haven't appeared to germinate so need to get some seeds or try supermarket ones we have .

Ooops just bought some other sorts

I do mine between two layers of damp kitchen paper, sealed in a plastic tub (to keep the moisture in), then placed above my kitchen radiator (not too close, or they'll cook). Ideally you want to keep them in the high 20s for fastest germination.
Viable seeds should sprout within a week with this method, and can then be potted up. Anything that hasn't sprouted by then is almost certainly dead, and can just be resown immediately.

[Andraste]

Hi Containergardener,

As ameno says, I use damp kitchen roll in a takeaway container. I don't have a rad I can place mine above so they just go on the kitchen worktop - being a little cooler, stuff like chillies might take a few more days to germinate but it still does the trick.

I do this with lots of types of seeds/beans now as it takes away some of the mystery of how many will sprout & saves on compost - takeaway containers stack nicely too so take up less space than lots of seed trays.

You just need to check regularly for the little root sprout then get them in some soil ASAP afterwards. Left too long they can start to burrow into the kitchen roll which makes them fiddly to extract - or even start putting up their seed leaves which happened with some old lettuce seed I sowed to check viability last year!

[Containergardener]

Thanks ameno and andraste I shall follow your advice

[Mark Rand]

Got a delivery of :-
One Yellow 7 Pot plug plant
One Scotch Bonnet plug plant
One Kashmiri Mirch plug plant (free bonus)

from worldofchillies.com. That'll make up for the ex-kitchen seeds which didn't germinate (Must've dried those ones in the oven instead of naturally, or they were just too old)

[Andraste]

The 1st 'Eureka' has popped it's head above soil today (16 days from chitting)

Looking back at last year I'm a little in advance - I didn't chit, didn't sow until 11 Feb & saw the 1st seed leaves on 26 Feb (15 days). Who knows if 10 extra days of growth will really make much difference but we shall see

[Containergardener]

Soaking some cayenne, anaheim and heatwave