CHILLIES 2020

New thread here.

 

Happy New Year.

ShineyHybrids are still going strong

 

That's looking very good. Where do you keep it @shiney indoors?

 

@JWK That and three others are on the kitchen windowsill. I have a few others in the propagator but Sarafi hasn't been looking after them quite as well.

We were away for just over two weeks. The ones on the windowsill were in shallow trays of water, whcih was all absorbed but obviously did OK - although they have stopped producing flowers. Those in the propagator got too dry despite someone popping in twice to water them.

 

Growing chillies is fairly simple. You first need to decide how hot you like your chillies and it's easy to look up different 'heat' charts online.

Sow the seeds as soon as possible (now is a good time) and, preferably, give them bottom heat of about 75F - 85F. They should germinate easily. When they're just over an inch high transplant, very carefully, into small pots. Pot them on in gradually larger pots when you see roots coming out of the bottom of the pot. Don't let them dry out too much. Water generously but infrequently and, preferably, use warm water. This saves you shocking the plant with the cold.

If kept indoors you may need to hand pollinate them. In greenhouse conditions there should be pollinators around.

Good luck

 

I've only just popped some of mine on to germinate.

I'm trying a different method this year, usually I put my seeds onto a damp piece of kitchen roll within a sealed clear takeaway tray (keeps moisture in), once they germinate, I then carefully move the freshly cracked seed into a Root riot cube (yes, they're not the cheapest method, but very easy and clean to use around the house), then obviously pot on into a 4" pot when ready.... This method I've used in the past as it takes up very little space.

This year, I've directly sown the seed into the Root Riot Cubes, I know I'm going to get a few which don't germinate, but I'll just have to keep an eye on them, also don't have the worry of damaging a young shoot when plopping into the Root Riot Cube once germinated, on top of this, I always have gone OTT every year with Chilli plants, and have loads left over as spare. So, mine are currently sitting in cell trays (perfect sized ones for Root Riot Cubes) in my heated propagator.

The hotter the Chilli you want to grow, the earlier you need to start them (superhots REALLY need starting now, for a decent crop).

I'm growing a lot more Jalepenos this year, as the other half Candies them, they are delicious, also I'll be growing around 4-5 Padron plants, as these are great as a snack, lightly fried in Olive Oil until blistered and Sea Salt cracked over them.

 

Certainly agree with this.

We shall be sowing seeds this week but have a slight problem that we need to sort first. We still have some of our plants producing, but they have a touch of aphid - so we shall need to harvest them all and get rid of the plants. These plants have also been self-seeding in their pots when some fruit have split and dropped some seed. Up till now we have just let them die out, when they reach a spindly 3" height, but we may try to save a few and see how they go.

 

We just use bog standard Multi Purpose Compost with no problem at all but there are usually better mixes for chillies. Some of the others should be able to tell you.

The reason we use MPC is that we use about 6,000 litres of compost and we just use that because of price and convenience of buying it.

 

I can't really tell you but I would be inclined to not put them deep. Maybe someone else ( @Webmaster ) could tell you.

We only start ours off in seed sprouters. These are normally used for sprouting things like Mung Beans (bean sprouts) etc.


We just put the chilli seeds on damp kitchen paper and wait for them to germinate




Then transfer them to seed trays


And later, move them on into small pots.

You can use almost any clear container that has a top.

 

Don't let the kitchen paper dry out. We then plant them in the seed trays with roots still in their paper so there's no root disturbance. If you place them on the kitchen paper spaced far enough apart you wouldn't need to trim them off the paper.