Chilli growing UPDATE - how are yours getting on?
Do you grow your own chillies? Share your hints and tips with us here.
The One Show is getting involved with Dig In - the BBC campaign to get the nation to grow their own grub. We're encouraging One Show viewers to grow chillies.
To get you started we gave away packets of Ring of Fire chilli seeds at the end of The One Show, 1st May 2009.
Chilli update (03/06/09)
We've been lovingly taking care of our chilli seeds. They've germinated and have now been transferred into small pots. We'd love to know what's happening with your seeds.
Send a photo of your chillies here.
Thank-you to Stuart Roebuck from Dewsbury, who has sent in this photo (left) if his chilli plants
We'd like you to share your chilli growing hints, tips and news with us. Add your comments below
How to grow chillies
"Fill a 7.5cm pot with seed compost, level and tap to settle. Lightly firm. Scatter the seeds of your chosen variety thinly on top - most seeds germinate so you only need to sow two more seeds than you need in case of losses..." Find out more about growing chillies at BBC Gardening.
Dig In
If you want to find out more about growing your own veg, visit
bbc.co.uk/digin. Share tips and advice on growing tomato, squash, beetroot, lettuce and carrots, download guides and join in their tour.
Eat your chillies!
Once you've grown your chillies, you can cook with them. "The pungent chilli has played an important role in cuisines the world over, adding a distinctive kick to many a dish." Find out more about cooking with chillies at BBC Food.
See also: Chilli recipes at BBC Food.
Do you grow your own chillies? Share your hints and tips with us here.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~44~RS~)
Comments
Last Year I grew several different type of chillies and all of them suffered with a white fly. I only got a few chillies off of each of my 4 plants and the majority of the time I spent removing the flies. I had to grow them indoors on the windowsill as the weather was so awful, so by the end of the summer I was suffering from lack of light as well. I live quite high up in Cumbria and do not grow things easily so I got quite excited that I might actually produce something, but the novelty wore off the more time I spent squinting in the dark whilst removing flies. Will your seeds be any better?
Yours optimisticaly
Norma Paine
Cumbria
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Hello Norma, thanks for getting in touch. I hope our seeds will be better - we shall find out as they grow. We're going to try and get them to grow in the office here. I shall look out for the white fly.
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I have three kinds of chillies currently growing on my windowsill. My advice for good germination is to give the seeds a quick spray of water. Then place them into a pot or plug tray using any general purpose compost.
The seeds need to be warm to germinate so a good place to put them is in an airing cupboard or somewhere with a bit of heat. Germination can take up to four weeks depending on the kind of chilli. Once a few seedlings have appeared from the compost place them on a windowsill or in a sunny spot. Pot them on once the roots appear at the bottom of the pots.
Tomato feed can be used on chillies once the first chilli has started to grow but I use half the amount of feed required for tomatoes for the chillies.
Good luck with your growing.
Kyle.
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Hey there, i am currently growing 6 varieties of chilli; tabasco, hungarian hot wax, demon red, jalapeno, anahiem and serenade. All but the tabasco are flowering and producing fruit at the moment and a couple fruits on the hungarian hot wax are nearly ripe now! The are SO easy to grow, I simply started them of in small pots in the airing cuboard then stuck them on the windowsil when they had germinated. Once they first started to produce flowers I pollinated between plants with my little finger and have had a 100% success rate thus far, touch wood! Chilli's are awesome!!!!
Cheers
Alex
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thatwomanpat wrote I cant believe after trying to get free veg seeds on gardeners world two weeks ago and then being told sorry no more seeds left [plenty on van thats touring SOME of england]but now the one show has got in on the act free chilli seeds!!but once again seeds have run out well what can I say. regards seedless patx
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Hi Norma, I live in Cumbria as well and grow a lot of chillies. White fly is a big problem, you need to keep the plant at the right moisture level.
Before you dowse them with water lift up the leaf and on the underside you will see the scales which are the next generation ready to hatch out. If you rub those out and then mist down you might actually get rid of them.
If you are interested we will be selling chilli plants at the Holker Garden Festival at the end of May. You can find us in the Made In Cumbria tent, The Chilli Pepper Company, www.thechilepeppercompany.co.uk for more information.
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Hope you're all successful. But what to do with them when they've grown?
I found two ways of keeping them for later use:
1. Put them on a plate on a sunny windowsill to dry out in the sun - they dry out really well and retain their flavour, so you can cut them up and add to your cooking, or just eat them as they are.
2. Chop them up so they're ready to add to your cooking, then freeze them in individual portions in tinfoil wraps, placed flat onto the frozen surface of your freezer, then just add them frozen to your cooking when you want to use them - they come out fresh as the moment you chopped them.
Lovely in chilli gravy, poured over anything. Except, perhaps, custard!?
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hello i am a first time grower of chillis
currently trying to method on the one show with the mini-greenhouse made from the sandwich bag, can anyone offer some advice on this method? some quesitons i have are:
1) how long do they need?
2) how will i know when to move them to a pot?
3) how wet should i keep the paper towel?
Thanks for all help in advance :)
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the main thing chilli plants need in the UK is lots of light. Until full summer arrives ideally you need you plants in a greenhouse or conervatory.
clarkee013
1)some varieties can take as long as 8 weeks to germinate so don't give up tooo early
2) place in small pots the seeds are sprouting (assuming you are germinating them on kitchen towels
3) spray tthe paper towel with water to keep it damp
if you want to read some more detailed articles or have some questions here is a great site and forum...
Good luck everyone!
Chilli Site: http://www.thechilliking.com
Chilli Forum: http://www.thechilliking.com/forum/index.php
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Two years ago I grew several chilli plants from seeds. The success was due to growing them in a plastic greenhouse the type you can pick up for under £20 I must have produced a crop of 30 or more chillis from each plant. Lasy year I tried growing them in a full size green house without much success. Believe this was due to the fact of not enough heat or humidity
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We were first time growers of chillies and we got these seeds from our friend in turkey I dont know the variety and if some one can tell us that would be great, they are purple and really hot we have loads of big healthy chillies and they grew really easy.
we had so many plants that we gave loads away to friends. we simply grew them on a windowledge and kept them wet by spraying lightly, we have also sent in a picture so hopefully you can see them and someone will be able to identify them! we started growing at christmas and we started to get chillies about a month ago.
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There are some types of chilli plant that just grow very easily, birds eye and purple tiger always grow very easily but like the chilligrowking says it is to do with light. Propogators help and the growing guide http://www.theenglishchillicompany.com/chilli_seed_growing_guide.html will help as well.
Let's all hope for a good long hot summer.
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there are over 4,000 varieties of chilli in the world, obviously you cant get hold of all the seeds in this country but you can get hundreds of varieties. they basically fall into 3 categories i think;
1. the really hot Chinense varieties, that really need a greenhouse to grow in.
2. classic chillies from around the world such as the Mexican Jalapeno, the Hungarian Hot Wax, the Carribean Scotch Bonnets, Cayenne Peppers
3. newer variants of chillies that have been bred for their ornamental qualities, many of these are hot too.
my top tip for germination is to soak chilli seeds overnight in a thermos flask of warm water (around 40 to 45 degrees c). or put little dishes of water with the seeds in inside a heated propagator. this should give you pretty much a 100% germination rate.
if you plant the seeds in a heated propagator, they should germinate within 10 days, although sometimes it does take longer.
another good tip for getting loads of chillies is, as the plants grow up past 6 inches tall, tip the pot over onto one side and wait for it to throw a load of sideshoots upwards, then turn it 180 degress and wait for the same, then 90 degress and then 180, until the plant has thrown out sideshoots in all directions. it's the sidestems that flower and then fruit so the more sidestems, the more fruit!.
Got these and lots of other tips from http://www.worldofchillies.com
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We grew several plants last year and collected loads of green hot chillis, and ended up having to freeze them because we had so many. So this year we only had one plant but the size and number of the fruits, including RED ones too, has equaled those collected last year. Tips, they were all grown on pretty normal soil, out in the open with not a lot of water but plenty of sunshine, as I live in France.
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Hi all.
Having grown my chilli plants for the first time this year I was so pleased with how they grew and the number of chilli's I have managed to take from them.
However, with summer over and the cold days fast approaching what do I do with the chilli plants over Winter?
Hope you can help.
Thanks
Steve
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Steve,
If you can get your plants through the winter into next year this will mean they will generally produce much higher yields of fruit, and fruit for longer in subsequent years.
This can be particularly useful for varieties such as naga or habanero that can have a very short fruiting season in their first years.
We give our plants a 'short back and sides'.
The plant is reduced to its main stem and the side shoots are cut back to about 2".
They should be kept moist but not over watered and fed with a ¼ strength high potash solution until the plants begin to sprout.
Hope that helps
Alex
Chilli Product Reviews: http://theenglishchillicompany.co.uk/
Seeds: http://theenglishchillicompany.co.uk/chilli-seeds/
The hottest chilli in the world: http://theenglishchillicompany.co.uk/bhut-jolokia-chilli-seeds/
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