Chillies - growing and overwintering 2018

[jonahjonah]

Hello chilli whisperers - I seek your wisdom. I started some plants from seed this year. The seeds in question were Thai bird's eye and cayenne. Most are only puny little guys (no more than 30 cm tall for the bird's eye and up to 60 cm for the cayenne), with a central stalk and healthy but not bushy leaves. The runtiest bird's eye has probably a couple dozen flower buds now, with three or so open flowers. The largest plants are in about 20/25 cm pots. Can these small plants support so much fruit growth or should I pinch off some/all of the buds?

I can try to get some photos later if necessary (cropping out, of course, the poor chap who collapsed when he dried out and is now growing on a u-bend-pipe-style stalk...).

Thanks!

[Scarlet]

It will be easier go help with a few photos.

[Small pumpkin]

How much chilli feed is everyone going through?
Just interested really. Don't care if you using proper chilli feed or tomato feed, home made what ever it is.
Just interested in quantity.
I'm needing to order more soon. I've got about enough left for 1 maybe 1 and a bit feeds. That will be the end of 10lt

[4Shoes]

How much chilli feed is everyone going through?
Just interested really. Don't care if you using proper chilli feed or tomato feed, home made what ever it is.
Just interested in quantity.
I'm needing to order more soon. I've got about enough left for 1 maybe 1 and a bit feeds. That will be the end of 10lt

Know the feeling. Finished my 3rd bottle. but I did start with Blood Fish Bone in the compost mix.

[Philthy]

Well following a growing hiatus (bar watering) after near constant problems that were really starting to do my head in and certainly took all the fun out of what I was doing, I have these last couple of weeks made a concerted effort to recover my chilli project for this year. By that I mean I've thrown out about six plants, and focused on cleaning up the others; removing all traces of greenfly and their residue, bit of pruning and shaping, re-potting where needed. By no means a quick task, but the alternative was to chuck the lot on the compost and just be done with it. Took everything out of GH and cleaned all inside for the 2nd time this year. Then for good measure I used a couple of those Greenhouse Fumigators that you light and leave in the space for a few hours. It's looking a lot more promising in there than a month ago. Even my chomped Espelette has greened up again. Any more signs of aphids and I'll get probably go down the ladybird route too, SP. I tried spraying earlier in the year and that made little to no impact.

I'm going to put shade netting back up this weekend, I've not bothered so far this summer despite the unusually prolonged hot spell, basically wasn't in the right mindset to care one way or the other. The plants haven't been too affected by the heat, the space has been ventilated 24/7, and any drooping tended to correct itself during the night. The one thing I have noticed from not shading as in previous summers is the leaves are thicker and more leathery. Flowering was down too but that could've been as much to do with the debilitating effects of chronic greenfly infestation than just heat stress.

Anyway, onwards and upwards now

[gringo]

Some advice on overwintering inside on a windowsill please:

I have a lovely little pot black (thanks Chris11) that was a late germinator, too small to pot up at this stage. What I'd really like to do is pot up to a medium pot and keep indoors over winter.

However, when I've done this in the past my missus has got quite upset at the little black flies that hover around, plus the sticky mess that dead aphids make on the windowsill!

Aphids I can control with a regular shampooing, but what about the flies? If I clingfilmed over the pot (around the stem) and watered from underneath, do you think that would help?

[Philthy]

...(no more than 30 cm tall for the bird's eye and up to 60 cm for the cayenne), with a central stalk and healthy but not bushy leaves. The runtiest bird's eye has probably a couple dozen flower buds now, with three or so open flowers. The largest plants are in about 20/25 cm pots. Can these small plants support so much fruit growth or should I pinch off some/all of the buds?

The seed packets tend to give general advice for mature plant size; you can usually better this considerably if you provide a roomy pot/container at the final potting on with a rich but well drained soil/compost, but that's also dependent on getting a good start to the season and favourable growing conditions during. While fruiting would be more prolific the end result is pods unlikely to be as potent than if you restrict the roots. So if heat was your goal you'd be better keeping the pot on the smaller size but of course you'd need to be more diligent with watering.

Personnally I think your stated pot size should be fine for the duration of the summer. I use that size myself. I definitely wouldn't go bigger than that given your plants' current size. Bird's Eye chilli fruits average an inch or so in length, borne readily on plants that are naturally quite bushy (I've found mature specimens in subsequent years can start to resemble small shrubs), so the good showing of flowers is not unusual. If it was me I'd want the plant to get a bit bigger and better established before cropping got properly underway. So I'd pinch out / snip off 2/3 at least, maybe all, of the existing flowers along with the tips of any side shoots. In either event it'd be a good idea to provide support for your plant/s; a stout flower stick or cane with one tying point should be enough at this stage. Push it in at an angle though so as not to damage roots at their point of origin. Encourage more flowers and better fruiting with a weekly feed, it needn't be specialist tomato food is fine. Be aware also too high a temperature could cause flower drop. And you don't want to let the plants dry out to the point of collapse; some leaf wilting is okay, and actually something else that supposedly encourages hotter pods if allowed to occur, but you'd need to manage that process as that degree of dry can quickly become excessive. Edit* Preference though is for stable watering, neither one extreme or the other, as both will result in checked growth. The measured drying out is more suited for well grown plants that are actively fruiting; it's an idea rather than essential to the process.


Gringo, get a packet of yellow sticky fly trap paper (though it's usually plastic). Cut one in half, and attach to a flower stick poked in the pot, but position at roughly the same height as the plant. Don't suspend on a string as it's extremely sticky and if it can blow about in a breeze and attach to the plant itself it'll cause damage trying to remove. The black gnats breed in the soil/compost. Keep it on the dry side (preferable anyway when overwintering), and further achieve this by watering from below ie. fill a saucer with water and stand the pot in it.

[jonahjonah]

Hello chilli whisperers - I seek your wisdom. I started some plants from seed this year. The seeds in question were Thai bird's eye and cayenne. Most are only puny little guys (no more than 30 cm tall for the bird's eye and up to 60 cm for the cayenne), with a central stalk and healthy but not bushy leaves. The runtiest bird's eye has probably a couple dozen flower buds now, with three or so open flowers. The largest plants are in about 20/25 cm pots. Can these small plants support so much fruit growth or should I pinch off some/all of the buds?

I can try to get some photos later if necessary (cropping out, of course, the poor chap who collapsed when he dried out and is now growing on a u-bend-pipe-style stalk...).

Thanks!

Thanks for the advice, Philthy! I've had a look but my seeds were from a cheap grocery store multipack and didn't give more info. They reckon the plant should end up in a 30 cm pot, but that is the only final size info available.

I've attached a couple of photos. (It was raining!!! on Friday, so I couldn't jinx it by going outside.)

Bird's eye


Cayenne 1


Cayenne 2

[the big lebowski]

sp im using canna hydro flora atm about 1-1.5 ml of A and B per 5 liters of water (works out around 1200 ppm and the ph is about 6 ) and in watering them about every 4 days ,up the plots are in 25 liter pots and indoors are 8 liters ish ,cheers

[Philthy]

Middle photo of the cayenne, that should be okay to let a few flowers develop into fruits. Fully formed they'll average 6" long so a smaller /shorter plant would be even less suited to carry them as they'll hang down. Cayennes grow like weeds almost as in quickly and easily. But put a stake /cane in that one fairly soon as the weight of the developing pods could pull it over.
All chillies need as much light (and warmth) as you can provide so if there's any spots in your GH which fair better than others for sunlight give the chilli plants priority. Edit* Temperature wise, as a rough guide, try to maintain no more than low 30's Celsius. If it gets hot again in your area, make sure to ventilate your GH. Trays of water on the floor also help to cool a bit, and will increase humidity which encourages fruit set.
Be careful with your watering; it should be moist rather than wet. The top layer can be dry to the touch, so long as when you poke your finger in it's moist an inch or so below the surface. Looks like you're watering from the bottom which is preferable, but you've got quite a lot of exposed roots in the top of the pot which you need to try and avoid, so I'm guessing you're also watering from the top(?) - if you water in this way use a smaller, gentler method of delivery so the pot is watered but the soil not disturbed.
Bearing in mind it's nearing end of July, you should still get another 8 weeks (roughly) of productive growth, but you need to use that time for the development of plants, both growing and then cropping (pods don't have to ripen on the plant, leave a few perhaps but as you pick them it'll encourage further flowering /new pods to form), rather than considering another re-potting. Like I say given your current sizes I personally don't think that'd be necessary anyway. But if you did, obviously your plant/s roots would be disturbed and they'd then need to reestablish in the new environment, which you've not really got time for.

[Small pumpkin]

The weather has gone back to normal this last week. Dull, overcast and drizzly. So I thought I would cheer myself up and boar you lot with some pod pics.

Unknown


Cherry bomb


Big Thai


Bangalore whippets tail


Cayenne

[Small pumpkin]

A couple more.

Thunder mountain longhorn


Other side of same plant because he's awesome.


Basket of fire


Another basket of fire

[Philthy]

WOW!! SP, that Thunder Mountain Longhorn is AWESOME! Where'd you get seeds? I want some

[Small pumpkin]

WOW!! SP, that Thunder Mountain Longhorn is AWESOME! Where'd you get seeds? I want some

Mitzi very kindly gave me them. I've isolated and successfully pollinated a couple. Hopefully they will have seeds in. So I could send you some at the end of the season.
Hoping for lots of seeds, I'd quite like to use that variety in the chilli seed circle

[Mitzi]

How did you get that TML so big? Mine is a little weedy thing by comparison with just a few small pods and one long one.

Have you had any ripe ones yet? Apparently the flavour isn't brilliant; they're more of a novelty plant.