Chillies - what are you growing/overwintering?

[the big lebowski]

hi tim they look great ,whats the thinking with those spicky pots ? i have seen them for sale but never really known the benefit ,is it to stop the roots just going round and round the edge of the pot ? cheers and welcome

[JusPotterinTim]

Sorry to add yet another post, I can't seem to edit my posts and add extra text into them.

Just to add that all the plants were started off under the grow lights, with the 54W fluorescent's you can get the plants at close as possible (well up to say 2cm away) and it won't fry them. The high output cool white fluorescents I use seem to have the benefit of making the seedlings grow very short and stocky, and start branching at about 5-10cm tall. This keeps them more compact at the end of the year, and helps fitting them in the mini greenhouse.

[JusPotterinTim]

hi tim they look great ,whats the thinking with those spicky pots ? i have seen them for sale but never really known the benefit ,is it to stop the roots just going round and round the edge of the pot ? cheers and welcome

Thanks, yes the idea behind the air pots is to stop roots circling, and then it's like having a bigger pot as the roots develop a fine network rather than tieing themselves up in knots, so you get a more efficient rootball for say a 3l airpot compared to a normal 3l pot. The holes also help keep the compost aerated to some extent. The end of the cones catches the end of the roots and stops them circling, and exposes them to air they call it "air pruning" of the root tips.

I pulled out my old Jalapeno at the end of last year and trashed it as it got bad leaf spot. The root ball was amazing I think, it was very dense, full of fine roots and also completely filling the pot with no thick matted circling roots.

I've not done a back to back test with a normal pot, but I think the air pots are quite useful to keep a small pot size and have the potential for a bigger crop than would otherwise be possible with that pot size.

+ they look unusual which I like.

[Scarlet]

Hello Tim and welcome to the vine.

I love your ŵinter set up with those lights! I never. Gad much luck with Bulgarian carrot so I'll be watching your posts. I hope you can get it through the winter months.
What are you planning to grow next year?

[Small pumpkin]

Tim very nice setup. I think there's a couple of chilli growers on here that use air pots. After seeing your plants I'm very tempted to invest in some for next year. your plants look very compact and healthy. Most of my plants are like triffids! Them and their pots are far to big to bring in the house to over winter.

It's about time I did a little chilli update. I'll take some pics later, so you can meet Simon and Trevor

[Scarlet]

SP, I try to bring in the smallest ones or those that haven't given a big crop. Lemon drops, Habs are the easiest to overwinter (imo) you could try taking them out of the big pot and trimming the roots, planting into a smaller pot for the winter?

[Scarlet]

Another alternative is bring the biggest one in and using it as a christmas tree

[JusPotterinTim]

Hello Tim and welcome to the vine.

I love your ŵinter set up with those lights! I never. Gad much luck with Bulgarian carrot so I'll be watching your posts. I hope you can get it through the winter months.
What are you planning to grow next year?

Thanks for the welcome Scarlet.

Yes the light setup is good, it's cost me about £100 including the lights and, erm, 'modified' shoe rack. Should be good for a few years, and isn't too costly to run. I'm running the lights for 12 hours a day on a timer, which should give a moderate crop, and costs about £7 a month in electricity.

I have high hopes of a good crop, last year the Jalapeno was rampant over winter and had dozens of pods which formed under the lights.

The only thing I think could stop them in their tracks is disease, I got bad leaf spot on an Apache last year, and despite using fungicide it went downhill. Something in the house environment seemed to keep the leaf spot thriving, I had to quarantine it as I was worried about it infecting the others.

Anyhow, this year there's no sign of any diseases so fingers crossed.

For next year, well, I want to keep it to 4 plants again, as they fill the space under the grow light and in the mini greenhouse. I love the Jalapenos, Hungarian Hot Wax and Cherry Bomb, so I think they're keepers. So there's one spot up for grabs, currently taken by the Bulgarian Carrot, I will see if those are any good and decide. If I don't like the carrot too much I might try a Brazilian Starfish or Bishop's Crown. The guy on the Hippy Seed company website seems to like those and does some great video reviews (e.g. Bishops Crown Pepper - The Hippy Seed Company), and they look quite endearing with their odd shaped pods.

[JusPotterinTim]

Tim very nice setup. I think there's a couple of chilli growers on here that use air pots. After seeing your plants I'm very tempted to invest in some for next year. your plants look very compact and healthy. Most of my plants are like triffids! Them and their pots are far to big to bring in the house to over winter.

It's about time I did a little chilli update. I'll take some pics later, so you can meet Simon and Trevor

Thanks, yes I look forward to seeing Simon and Trevor.

I think the key to avoiding lanky plants is the light levels once they start growing in spring. If light is at a premium they will reach for the sky while their growing fast and not slowed down by forming pods. In my case I think it's the grow lights that help keep them squat, giving them enough light so they don't want to grow upwards, and the air pots give the benefit of supporting a plant with more vegetation than the same-sized traditional pot would. If anything the lights make them too dense, I've had trouble harvesting pods before without snipping off other limbs from the plant, not really a bad problem to have though.

The light fixtures I've got are called Sunblaster T5 HO. They were about £30 each, and I use a 'daylight' bulb in them, which comes with the light. Using the lights for a few months a year, the bulbs should last about 3 years before their output drops significantly, and I bought a box of bulbs from the shop I bought them from, worked out about £5 per bulb. It's the high output 'HO' type of bulb that's the key to thriving plants I think, I measured the lux level using my phone and the top of the canopy is getting about 20,000 lux, and most of the plant area below about the same too, I reckon with 12-18 hours of this I should get a good crop. I'm trying 12 hours of light for the moment and will see how fast they grow, costs about £7 a month to run them for that time period.

To give an update already, I gave the Hot Wax, Carrot and Jalapeno a haircut today, and used some books and magazines to get them right under the lights. The Cherry bomb on the left can stay sprawling out everywhere for a while as it's got some pods forming high up in the canopy. Picture of the trimmed plants (I cut back the Jalapeno hard on the right):



I've also got a wireless thermometer sat on the Hot Wax's pot, this is showing about 28 Celsius with the lights on, and about 20 overnight when the lights are off. From what I have read these are almost perfect chilli growing temperatures so I'm hoping they'll do well this winter.

[Small pumpkin]

Update time everyone is starting to look a little tired and cold now but bless them they are still ripening and trying to produce in some cases.
you will have to excuse the mess, it's a bit tricky to get in there to tidy without snapping branches. The only thing left in the tunnel now is chilli's and sweet peppers.



Left side of the tunnel is all chillies. I have to crawl round the path that side of the tunnel to get to the other end. A lot of those branches hanging over the path are at head height (i'm 5ft 2" ). To be fair they are in quite large pots.



right side of the tunnel. A few gaps where tomatoes and things have been removed.
I don't think things looking to bad.

[JusPotterinTim]

Very impressive, it's looks like you have a farm on your plot! Were the large ones grown from seed this year?

[Small pumpkin]

Update Part 2



Look one of Simon's babies is nearly ripe .He has a few more coming but that was the easiest to photograph in the jungle that is Simon.
what did I do? .... I forgot to take a bl@@dy photo of Simon . ( Tim if you're board one wet afternoon, just work your way through all 230 pages. there's a pic of Simon somewhere here ) Simon is a Dorset Naga by the way.



Lemon Drop is doing fantastically well. Thank you scarlet



Also stunning is my chocolate Habaneros and you can see a few more lemon drops in the back ground.

[Small pumpkin]

Very impressive, it's looks like you have a farm on your plot! Were the large ones grown from seed this year?

Thank you Tim. yeah they were. only my Dorset Naga, White Habanero and Chocolate Habanero were brought as plug plants in March.

[Scarlet]

They look brill SP...you won't need to grow any for the next few years now

I really like the look of those chocolate habs.

[Small pumpkin]

They look brill SP...you won't need to grow any for the next few years now

I really like the look of those chocolate habs.

Well there's no need for language like that is there .

The chocolate hab has been brilliant it's produced and produced. He's big but not got massive long branches that stick out in all directions. The actual chilli's have a fair old kick to them as well. Think I'm going to buy another plug plant from the same place next year.


And I've taken your advice my little filius blue is now in a smaller pot and in the house. It got a bit of a brutal pruning a couple of weeks ago when we harvested, because I wasn't planning on over wintering. But I looked at the little fella today and what growth was still on him was looking good. So I crumbled and now have a chilli in the house