Endless Summer...

...hardly. It seems that summer's only just begun and already it's over. It's one as no surprise that this summer has been the wettest on record since Noah paddled his canoe and the garden has suffered accordingly.

A mass of flowers on the pretty ornamental Explosive Ember

Miniature Sweet Pepper - these have been very successful, even with the poor weather.

My garden is north-east facing and consequently receives little sunlight. I also don't have a full sized greenhouse, just a couple of small growhouses. Growing heat-loving plants like chillies does present a challenge and in order to maximise sunlight, most of the plants have been moved outdoors, away from the shade of the house.

Twilight 

It's certainly helped and this last week of cloudless skies has seen plants come on in leaps and bounds. However, there is a downside - the night time temperatures have been plummeting and so, no sooner have I moved all the plants outdoors, I'm now migrating the more precious specimens back indoors to avoid them being harmed by the cold nights. I'm not suggesting that a frost is imminent, but some of the plants have been so late in flowering and fruiting (Black Naga, I'm talking about you!) thatI daren't jeopardise the few fruit it has produced.

A heavy crop of fruit on the Cayenne bush. Just need some sun to ripen.

So once again, the windowsills are filling up and I doubt I'll get a clear view until May next year. Come the end of September I'll be having a cull of chillies and deciding what to overwinter and what to grow next year. Some plants will be getting a glowing school report and some will definitely have to try harder.

The fantastic Superchilli bush, still producing a steady crop of fruit.

Hoping for an Indian Summer

There's plenty of fruit beginning to set on the chillies but we still need sun to get it ripen. So, a little more sunshine would be greatly appreciated.

Loco

Padron

I manged to blow my head off with a plateful of Padrons the other day.  I endured a searing heat that had my eyes watering, nose running and about 20 minutes of stomach cramps.

Damn tasty though!

What is supposed to be a mild, sweet chilli with a 10% chance of being hot seems to consistently produce scorchingly hot fruit.  It's not just my plants either - the Padron plants that I gave to Claudio produce similarly hot fruit (although his chillies are significantly larger than mine).

Twilight

Hungarian Hot Wax

Yellow Scotch Bonnet

The Red Scotch Bonnet plant is beginning to set fruit as well although it's about a month behind its yellow cousin. Moving the plants outside has certainly slowed them down but with the windowsills overloaded and the constant aphid attacks, it was the best solution.

Explosive Ember

Explosive ember is a very pretty ornamental chilli with deep purple leaves and fruit.  It's a much more compact bush than the similarly coloured Orozco and I suspect would be better suited to a windowsill rather than Orozco's spreading habit.

Balloon

I'm gearing up to a chilli jam making session this weekend so I'm hoping for a few more fruit to ripen to add to the stockpile in the freezer. Hopefully I'll have enough to make a couple of batches of jam at different heats depending on people's bravery and spice tolerance.

The photo edition

 For a change I thought I would ditch the compact camera and actually take some proper photos with a macro lens. So here's a few shots of some of the various chillies on the go at the moment, flowers, fruit and foliage.

Flowers on the rare superhot Black Nagas, whether the fruit is truly black remains to be seen.

Tiny fruit and flowers on the ornamental Prairie Fire.

Purple Jalapeno  

Explosive Ember

New Mex Centennial

Cayenne

Cayenne

Scotch Bonnet

Aphid Attack!

Greenfly is a constant problem, particularly for those plants grown on the windowsill.  The heat and lack of humidity are perfect conditions for these sap suckers.  Putting the plants outside will help slow the aphids but sometimes the infestation is so bad that the only resort is the dreaded pesticide.  Fortunately there are organic pesticides that will still allow you to harvest the fruit within several days of spraying.

Superchilli

Superchilli

The Superchilli is a real standout plant, producing mounds of hot red fruits.  Sadly I gave most of mine away this year but it's a plant that I'll definitely overwinter and sow more next year.

This unusual fruit is actually a Padron pepper.  Not only is it the wrong size but also the wrong shape.  I suspect that it's a cross-breed with the Chilhuacle Negro plant next to it.

Chilhuacle Negro

Hungarian Hot Wax

Black Hungarian (in the rain). 

Loco

A healthy crop of Friar's Hat chillies.  It's important to keep picking the fruit to encourage the plant to put out more flowers.

Orozco's beautiful leaves 

A two-tone leaf on the Orozco plant