Growing chillies

A diary for the season

This category is a series of posts giving a step-by-step account of what happens in a typical season of growing Chillies in the UK. It begins with the selection and planting of seeds, and will end (after harvesting) with the preparation of some plants for overwintering.

All aspects of growing Chillies will be covered. Various mediums and methods of propagating seeds, including Rockwell cubes, peat pellets, paper towel germination and hydroponics, will be examined. The success or failure achieved with each medium or method will be described.

Once the seeds have germinated, posts will provide advice on how the seedlings should be taken care of. Other posts will describe the first potting on stage that will need to be done once the plants reach a certain size. Information will also cover what precautions should be taken to protect the young plants against unwanted pests like fungus gnats and aphids.

Once the plants have outgrown their first pots, the posts will go into the preparation of the compost that they will be transplanted into. Later in the season, when it gets warm enough outside to place the plants outdoors, the posts will describe how the plants should be prepared for outside exposure.

The next posts will then describe how the plants have been taken care of. This will include any obstacles that have been encountered including pests, weather conditions and anything else that may happen.

Fertilizers and nutrients will be discussed, and the outcomes that are achieved by using specific products. This will include which fertilizers and nutrients to use at each stage in the Chilli plants’ development.

From there, the blooming of the plants, pollination and the arrival of the first Chillies of the season will be covered. Their progression to full sized fruit and harvesting will also be discussed.

The series will then end with information of how the harvested Chillies have been used to make hot sauces, jams, chutneys and various other dishes. The final posts will also go into how seeds should be prepared and stored for next year’s planting season and how a few select plants will choose for overwintering.

Fermented Chilli sauce recipe

CGS Cooking with Chillies, Growing chillies 9th December 20229th December 2022 2 Comments

Fermented Chilli sauce

Last weekend I started making fermented Chilli sauce with part of my harvest of Aji Habaneros and Bishops Crowns. The Chillies are now starting to ferment, and I am now starting to see carbon – dioxide bubbles floating up from the fermentation brine. It has taken about three days to reach this point. In another four to five days the sauces will be ready, and I will then blitz them into a Chilli sauce.

Fermentation is a great way to preserve Chillies, whether making a hot sauce or Chilli pickles. It is a method that has been used for thousands of years and was certainly being done before canning and bottling was invented.Recently, there has been renewed interest in this ancient form of preservation. This is because people have realised that the end- product tastes great and is also really healthy. What’s more, it’s easy to do

The basic principle behind fermentation is that you allow the Chillies to ferment in a brine solution of about five percent salt in water. The fermentation process results in acetic acid being produced which serves to preserve the Chillies but also give them a pleasant sour taste. Once they have been preserved in this way, they can be kept either whole in the brine or alternatively the brine gets drained and the Chillies then get blended into a sauce.

How to overwinter Chillies

CGS Growing chillies 29th November 202230th November 2022 0 Comment

The first frost

The first frost has arrived in the West Midlands. With the anticipation that it would arrive around about now, three weeks ago I brought most of my Chillies in doors. Most are in my garage under grow lights as many still must ripen fully. I also prepared a couple of my larger plants for overwintering and even turned one of my larger plants (a Fatalii) into a Bonchi. Bonchi’s are Chilli plants that have been cut in such a way that they will eventfully resemble Bonsai trees. They make great indoor ornamental plants

Overwintering Chillies is done by removing most of their foliage and pruning their stems so that the plant is placed in a position that it requires very little nutrition to grow. It means that when the plant goes into dormancy for the winter it can stay sufficiently alive to survive the winter. When spring arrives, the plant will then break out of dormancy and have a head start in in producing Chillies in the next season.

In their natural environment (hotter climates) Chillies are perennials. Perennials are plants that do not completely die off during winter in the same way annuals do. They lose foliage and stop growing during winter but will spring back into life at the onset of summer. In the UK, however, because of the cold winters, this is not possible. Chillies cannot survive freezing and die if exposed to the zero-degree temperatures that are often experienced in the United Kingdom during this time of the year.

Ripening with grow lights

CGS Growing chillies 2nd November 202229th November 2022The 2021 Chilli growing season 1 Comment

Grow lights work well

Last year September because I was experiencing a problem with getting my Chillies ripe in time for the end of the season I placed them under grow lights to see whether this would speed up ripening . After two weeks, I was delighted to advise it had worked. The two plants I had under the lights started to ripen. Two other plants of the same variety that I had kept outside showed no signs of doing the same. This convinced me that ripening under grow lights works. Here is what happened.

How to save seeds

CGS Growing chillies 2nd November 202216th October 2023 1 Comment

Saving seeds for next year

With the Chilli season coming to a close and Chilli harvesting in full swing in the United Kingdom, now is the time to start saving seeds for next season. With the hefty price that some seed suppliers charge for their seeds, this makes good financial sense. Besides, if you have plants that have done exceptionally well in the season, why not save some seeds for next year?

To successfully save seeds, choose fruit that is slightly overripe. The chances of the seeds being fertile are far more likely if they are at this stage of ripeness. Also, make sure you only chose pods that are healthy and not showing any signs of disease.

Once you have picked them, slice them in half and scrape them out of their pods. Try to scoop out as little of the white membrane when doing this, as not doing so can cause seeds to become mouldy during drying. This can cause them to become infertile

Once the seeds have been scrapped out of their pods, place them in a tea strainer under cold running water, and gently wash away as much of the placenta as possible. If this doesn’t, work try placing the seeds in a jar with some water, and shake them until any remaining placental tissue shakes loose from the seed.

How to pick Chillies

CGS Growing chillies 28th October 202228th April 2023 1 Comment

Harvest time

We are now at the point in the season where many Chilli growers harvest their crops. Many of our Chillies have now ripened. However, if you are like me, there is still a while to go until the end of the season. With this in mind, I want to harvest what I can without damaging my plants. Particularly those I want to overwinter. This is where the method used to pick the Chillies becomes important. I cover this topic in this post

The best way to harvest Chillies is by snapping the Chillies off at the base of their calyxes with your fingers. Simply hold the base of the calyx between your thumb and index fingers, and pull the Chilli away from it using the same fingers on the other hand.

Snipping Chillies off at the stem using scissors instead of snapping them off can pose a risk to the plant. By snipping the Chilli plant on its stem with scissors, you create an “open wound” on it. There is then a possibility the stem will rot, and this may introduce disease into the plant. This is the last thing you want to happen. To keep plants over winter, they will need to be as robust as possible when beginning the overwintering process. It is the only way the plants will survive and thrive in the next season

When to harvest Chillies in the UK

CGS Growing chillies 28th September 20221st May 2023 1 Comment

When to pick Chillies in the UK

Today I made a second harvest of Chillies. I harvested some about two weeks ago, and today picked some more, for no other reason than that they were ripe, and it was the optimum time for these Chillies to be harvested. Not doing so would have meant that they would have gone past their prime. Picking them too early would have meant they would not have developed to their full potential.

There is no hard and fast rule when to harvest Chillies in the UK. You can start at any time, provided the Chillies have ripened. In certain Chillies, that may mean they have changed from green to red, orange, or yellow. Other varieties may start off yellow and ripen to orange, or even begin purple and then turn red. The variations of ripening are endless

The important thing to remember here is that you should only pick Chillies when they are nearly fully ripe. Unlike tomatoes, Chillies will not ripen much more once they have been harvested .You can of course pick them when they are still green, but don’t expect them to be as hot as ripe Chillies

Luckily, many of my Chillies have started ripening, but there is a long way to go yet. Many still need to. Some are still yellow, and others are green. This means that between now and the end of November, when the first frost will arrive in the West Midlands (where we live), I need a lot more ripening to harvest while they are still outdoors.

The ripening of my Chillies this year has been a lot better than last year. This has mainly been because we had a hot summer. The Chillies grew quickly, which in turn means they can ripen more quickly. Hopefully this will happen. However in the UK, because of the short growing season, there is always a dash to get Chillies ripened before the first frost

Getting rid of Sciarid flies

CGS Growing chillies 17th April 202210th May 2022 1 Comment

Getting rid of these pests

While fungus gnats (or sciarid flies as they are also known) don’t pose a threat to humans, they can cause harm to plants. While this threat diminishes when seedlings get older, there is still a possibility that these 2mm little black flies can create problems. Their larvae attack the roots of plants, and adult flies can carry Pythium on their feet. Pythium is a pathogen that causes damping off in seedlings. If infestations are large enough, fungus gnats can stunt growth and even kill plants.

With all these dangers, and for the simple fact that fungus gnats are annoying, I have made it a priority to find ways to get rid of them in any way I can. I know it will be virtually impossible to eliminate them (as they breed very quickly), but I certainly believe it is possible to bring their numbers under control. Particularly now that I have started using some rather unconventional methods to attack the problem head on

The first of these methods (believe this or not) is to use a handheld vacuum cleaner to suck up the gnats as they crawl or hover around the plants. It might sound funny, but believe me, it works remarkably well. To do this, I water the plants from the top and suck the gnats into the vacuum cleaner. I can do this as they fly up after being disturbed by the water. When you consider that each adult fungus female fungus gnat fly can lay up to 200 eggs. Even if you only capture twenty flies in a single session, you will have removed the potential of another four thousand fungus gnats being born. That’s impressive

Treating nutrient deficiencies

CGS Growing chillies 5th April 20221st May 2023 0 Comment

Nutrient deficiencies

In a previous post, I mentioned my Cherry Chillies and Rocotos were doing well. I also believed at the time that my Madam Jeanettes were more than holding their own. Since then, things have changed. They are just not delivering on the promise they once showed. How this happened I am not sure, but can only put it down to nutrient deficiency. It is certainly not disease or pests creating this problem.

The Madams J’s are not alone in this. There are others. These plants include a Carolina Reaper, a Moruga Scorpion, a Roma pepper, a Peach Bhut Jolokia, two white Bhut Jolokia’s and no fewer than three Madam Jeanettes. It is obvious from their stunted growth and the colour of their leaves that they are struggling

This is somewhat confusing as It’s not like these plants haven’t received the same attention as the plants that are doing well. They have all had the same treatment (including fertilisers, etc), but just don’t seem to want to respond as well as the other plants. It is obvious that something needs to be done

With this in mind, I have decided to examine each plant in detail and try to find out what’s wrong. Hopefully, once I have done this, I can formulate an action plan to see if I can turn things around. Maybe all it takes is changing the fertilisation of these plants individually. In other words, arriving at a fertilisation plan that caters specifically to the symptoms that individual plants show. It is worth a bash

To start this exercise, I decided to begin with Madame Jeanettes. Considering that just a few weeks ago, I was waxing lyrical about just how well they were doing. It somehow now seems more than a little strange that I am having to give them special treatment to help them survive and start to grow well again.

Understanding NPK in fertilisers

CGS Growing chillies 4th April 20224th April 2022 0 Comment

Understanding fertiliser labels

Ever looked at a fertiliser label and wondered what they mean? Join the club. On a macro level, I believe I understand what it’s about, but it’s the final detail that gets me flummoxed. Particularly when it comes to dosages. By this, I mean why should one fertilizer with an NPK of 4: 3: 8 (call it fertiliser A) get diluted at the rate of 20 ml per 4.5 litres of water at fruit set, while another (fertiliser B) with an NPK of 2.7: 1: 4. gets diluted at 10ml per litre at the first sign of buds?

The instructions for the fertiliser B recommend using it at 5ml per litre for young plants. The recommendation is then to up the dosage to 10ml from the onset of flowering. In other words, double the dosage. By doing that, does that mean the NPK value of the fertiliser being fed to the plant has been doubled?

Logic would dictate to me that if the container of fertilizer B says it has an NPK of 2.7: 1. 4.4, this ratio would have to apply to at the 5ml dosage. Surely by upping the dose to 10 ml, this would mean the NPK has now been doubled to 5.4: 2: 8.8. On the face of it, this would make sense, as it ties in with the NPKs of other fertilisers recommended for flowering plants.

If this is correct, we are getting closer to the NPK of fertilizer A which is 4: 3: 8. However, if I convert the dosage of the fertiliser A to a per litre basis, I arrive at 4.44 ml per litre. This doesn’t remotely compare to the 10 ml per litre dosage for fertiliser B. To me, something doesn’t add up. It I converted the 4.4 ml per litre of fertiliser A to the same dosage of 10 ml for fertiliser B. Would this mean that at this dosage the NPK of fertiliser A would be 2.25 times greater (i.e. 9: 6.75: 18) at 10 ml? See where I am coming from?

Pre- soaking Chilli seeds

CGS Growing chillies 1st April 20229th April 2023 0 Comment

Finding the best solution

It’s one thing to make comparisons; it’s another to ensure that the basis for comparison is correct. For example, I recently started a comparison exercise between various solutions for the pre-soaking of Chilli seeds before planting. The experiment was to determine which of seaweed extract, saltpetre, or plain water with a few drops of detergent is the most effective in seed starting.

It was certainly easy enough to get the varieties part of the equation right. That just took choosing the types I wanted to grow and making sure the seeds for the experiment all came from the same packets. The water part was also easy. That was simply rainwater from my rain butt brought to lukewarm in the microwave. Similarly, the soaking period was also easy. I simply decided on the normal standard of an overnight period of between twelve and eighteen hours.

However, the difficulty came in trying to determine the dilutions I would use to make the comparisons more less on an equal footing. For example, were the solutions going to be strong or weak? To me, this will make a difference. Surely you would want to place the seeds on equal standing in terms of concentration of scarification agent. If you were, say, going to use a strong seaweed extract mix, you should also use a strong concentration of saltpetre etc. Surely a stronger concentration of one agent shouldn’t be compared with a weaker one of another. See where I am coming from? To figure out what to do, I decided to do some research. I definitely needed to get some clarity on this issue

The Chilli Workshop