The 2021 Chilli growing season

Why start seeds early?

When to sow Chilli seeds

Most seeds packets for Chillies recommend sowing them between January and March. Some even recommend sowing as late as April.  I tend to agree with the January start, but unless you plant fast-growing varieties like Bell peppers, Jalapenos, Fushimi, Shishito or Hatch Chillies, starting in April, might be too late.

While most of the Chillies mentioned above will produce a crop in 60 to 75 days, if seeds for superhots are started, one could expect them to take far longer. Some superhots, dependent on the weather, take more than one hundred and twenty days from potting-on to set fruit. Then, it takes even longer for the fruit to ripen.

Take this season, for example. I started a month later than usual, and suffered the consequences. I struggled to get my fruit ripe this year. While many have finally ripened, I still have plants that haven’t even fruited. They have flowered, but are yet to produce Chillies. That’s no good, as the Chilli growing season has already ended for this year.

To ensure this doesn’t happen again, I have already started some of my seeds for next year. The seeds were planted about three weeks ago. Some seedlings are already about two inches tall, but for the most part, are only about an inch in height. They are mostly superhot varieties and will take a long time to grow. I expect they will only be between eight and twelve inches tall come spring next year.  I certainly won’t hurry to repot them too soon after their first potting-on. This should  constrain their growth. I am also working on the premise that plants grow more slowly in winter.

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Making Chilli / Lemon marmalade

A recipe is born

Some Chillies I started from seed in March are now fully ripe. These include my Aji White Wax, Apaches, Satan’s Kiss and Barak Chillies. I have already made Peri Peri Sauce with Apache Chillies.  My next cooking project is with the Baraks, which finally ripened after being placed under grow lights earlier in the season.

Baraks are a fantastic ornamental Chilli that produces lots of multi-coloured pods. They are quite hot Chillies with a Scoville rating of between ninety five and one hundred thousand SHU. The fruit starts off yellow and then slowly changes to orange. When fully ripe, the fruit is a bright red.  Often you will find fruit at different stages of ripening on a single plant. These varying colours make the plant attractive. It is as pretty as any house flower.

But that is only a bonus. Baraks are also excellent eating Chillies. With about five bushes with ripe fruit, I have decided to use them to create an entirely new recipe. And where better to start than a new recipe for jam. Chillies add a delightful zest to jams made with fruit (among others) like rhubarb, apples, mangoes and pineapples. Chillies also combine well with citrus.  For this recipe, I will use lemons and Barak Chillies to make a marmalade

What’s more, I have decided to make this one carb friendly.  This is a recipe that anyone on a Banting or Keto diet will enjoy

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Will the real Scotch bonnet stand up?

Scotch bonnets and Habaneros are closely related. They are both from the same species and may even share the same origin. It is believed that the Taino people from South America originally brought similar Chillies to the Caribbean when they travelled there many thousands of years ago. The Habanero travelled a different route to Mexico. They may have been brought there by birds or also by Amerindians from the Amazon. Birds eat Chillies and distribute seeds in their droppings when they migrate. When considering the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico’s proximity to Cuba, the bird theory is plausible. Cuba is after all in the Caribbean and was one of the countries the Taino settled in.

We all know that Habaneros and Scotch bonnets often get confused. All you need to do is search the web, and you will get many conflicting views. Some have the Scotch bonnet as looking like a Tam o Shanter cap or like a cup with a saucer. Others have Scotch bonnets squatter with lobes and resembling a small pumpkin. Yet others are squashed with no lobes at all. In some images, it is even possible they may even resemble a Habanero

Habaneros are often described as lantern shaped with a rounded top that tapers to a point. However, once again, if you surf the web, you find images of Habaneros in other shapes. Some squashed with distorted lobes, some teardrop shaped and others stunted. It can all get a bit confusing.

So, what is the truth of the matter? Let’s dig deeper to sift the wheat from the chaff

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Collapsed seedlings

Overwatering Chillies is something to be avoided at the best of times.  However. when checking my seedlings a couple of days ago and finding a couple had fallen over, I said ” here we go again. This has happened to me before. My first thoughts were “I hope this isn’t damping off.” If it had been, I would have been seriously alarmed.

Damping off is a disease where seedlings have been attacked by one or another pathogens that cause their stems to rot.  These nasties are rapid killers that can kill off a tray of seedlings in no time at all. What’s more, if not effectively dealt with, damping off can transfer to all seedlings in immediate proximity.  It has the potential to wipe out everything

The seedlings were in wet soil. This is just inviting the nasties mentioned to come visiting. These nasties include the Rhizoctonia fungi, Phytophtora, Fusarium, and the water mould Pythium . These pathogens can spread from seedling to seedling through shared potting media and irrigation water. In my case, shared irrigation water could have posed a risk. I keep my seedings in seed trays that share watering. If this was the start of damping off, my seedlings were in danger. The situation did not look good at all!

I could have kicked myself. It is one of the first lessons I learned when I began growing Chillies. Seedlings shouldn’t be given too much water. I constantly try to remind myself about this. Overwatering is not good for Chillies, full stop.  Chillies don’t like too much water when they are fully grown. They like overwatering even less when they are seedlings (no more emphasis required)

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About peat

In a previous post, I mentioned that I would be looking at ways to go peat-free. There are concerns about the effects rapidly diminishing peat bogs and peat lands are having on the environment.

Peat is one of the most effective carbon sinks on the planet. A carbon sink accumulates and stores carbon-containing chemical compounds for indefinite periods. In doing so, they reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

As we know, carbon dioxide is one of the biggest causes of global warming. By continuing to remove peat from bogs at the rate we are, we are creating irreversible problems.

Peat, which is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetable or organic matter, takes thousands of years to form.  We are currently using Peat up it up far quicker than it takes to make. This could make a situation, which is already out of control, as far as the environment is concerned, even worse. So, as much as I am a fan of using peat in growing Chillies, stop, I will. Other alternatives will need to be found.

I have already started some seeds for next season. I must admit I used peat pellets to start these seeds. The pellets are, however, what I have left over from the season that has just passed. Little would have been achieved by throwing these out.  However, I have taken the first step in going peat-free.

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Nearing the end of the season

I have been dreading  for this for a couple of weeks now. It has gradually been getting colder, and this morning there it was – the first frost.  When the first frost arrives , if you haven’t yet managed to get your plants under some form of cover, be it protective fleecing, indoors or into heated enclosures, that’s it. Your Chilli growing season  will soon be drawing to a close. Chillies don’t like the cold!

The first frost arrives in various areas in the UK at different times. The general rule is that the further North you are, the quicker it will come. I live in the Midlands and was expecting the first frost towards the middle of the month. However, this year the first frost arrived at least ten days earlier than I believed it would. Fortunately, I managed to get all my Chillies indoors or into heated enclosures  a couple of weeks ago.

Last season  I covered some of my plants with drawstring plant covers, as I did not have enough space for my plants under cover. This was the only way I had of keeping the frost off the plants. By covering them, I managed to extend the season for a while, but it was nowhere near as effective as bringing them inside or into the heated areas.  The covers can only provide limited protection. After a while, it just becomes too cold for them to work effectively.

The heated enclosed areas I refer to are a mini glass greenhouse, and two tomato grow tents. I erected these last year. I also had some weatherproof outdoor electrical sockets installed. By having these sockets installed, I was able to place low energy tubular heaters inside these areas. These heaters only draw 80 watts, which means they do not use much electricity. They do, however, do a fine job of keeping the plants warm.

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Where it all started

I began this growing season indoors in heated propagators and under grow- lights   at the beginning of March. I started seeds in the first week of the month, and followed that up with planting more seeds a couple of weeks later. I started Longhorn F1s, Ciliegia Piccante (Satan’s Kisses), Thai Demons, Barak Chillies, Orange Habaneros, and African Devils.

I also had some overwintered plants from the 2020 season. These were a couple of yellow Scotch Bonnets, Bolivian Rainbows, a White wax and a Trinidad Scorpion  Butch T. A few weeks later, I started seeds for Chi Chiens, Purple Tigers,  more Scotch bonnets, Habaneros and Prairie Fire Chillies. I didn’t know it at the time, but somehow I managed to plant Apache F1 Chilllies as well.

It has been a strange season. There has not been much sunshine. The result is that my Chillies have not done as well as I might have hoped.   They seemed to take forever to grow. However, with some perseverance and deviating from what I usually do (including changing fertilization and ripening methods), I managed to get some normality back in the season. Well, kind of anyway!

I had quite good germination rates and currently have plants for most of the seeds I started.  Right now, many of these plants have fruited. In most instances, the fruit is now ripening. Particularly on the plants I brought indoors early in the season.  Some plants, however, have only just managed to flower. Some haven’t even managed to do that. It’s all a bit of a mystery why this happened.

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