New year, new start

So things have been dormant for a while.  I've not had time over the winter to do much with the greenhouse but now spring is springing and I thought it was about time to dust off the propagators and get the seeds started.

Last year I planted the seeds nice and early but was then stuck with a mass of rapidly growing seedlings and nowhere for them to go until the greenhouse was built.

This year I've left it a little later to plant the seeds and I'll keep them well away from the overwintered  chillies to avoid transmitting aphids to the new seedlings when they arrive.

As for the overwintered plants, most have succumbed to mould. I didn't get round to installing the planned passive solar system in time for winter and the greenhouse has been quite damp. I'll get the heating sorted in time for the new seedlings but last year's stock has effectively been written off.

I've opted for 16 different varieties this year, a mixture of old favourites and some new superhots. I've using Growth Technology Root Riot cubes this year to see how they perform.  Although more expensive than seed trays or jiffy pellets, with fewer seeds to plant the expense is less important than the germination and survival rate.

So here are this year's contenders...

Kashmiri Mirch, Chocolate Scotch Bonnet, Jay's Peach Ghost Scorpion, Trinidad 7 Pot Brown

Black Naga, Peach Bhut Jolokia, Hot Lemon, Paper Lantern

Moruglah F2, White Bhut Jolokia, Joe's Long Cayenne, Twilight (this year's Chilli Challenge seeds)

Chocolate Habanero, Fatalli, Naga Morich, Bubblegum 7 Pot

The heated propagators are up and running, the lights will come in to play once the seedlings start sprouting.

Growing pains

Still snug and safe from the winter storms, the seedlings are rapidly growing in the Chilli Room.  The heated propagator is so efficient that the Joe's Long and Ancho have shot up to tower over the habs and are in danger of keeling over.  They'll be potted on within the next few days and the lid removed from the propagator to harden them off.

The seedlings are growing rapidly, if somewhat leggy.  Tine to pot on.

Not all of the overwintered plants have survived with a few dying in the last few weeks.  There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason why, with identical plants sitting next to each other where one thrives and one doesn't.  I've potted on a few into Root Pouches with fresh compost to kick-start them back into life and also extended the lighting time to convince them that spring is on the way.

Some of the overwintered 'sticks' have been potted on to fresh compost in Root Pouches

The plants from the Chilligrows have been overwintered with varying degrees of sucess.

Not all have made it through the winter.

Sadly the aphids have been attacking everything in sight and with the soapy water and fly traps failing to make a dent in them I've had to resort to an organic bug spray.  I'm not a fan of sprays but it's too early in the year for their natural predators to thrive and the artificially warm environment of the chilli room has has given the the aphids the perfect conditions to multiply.

The traditional Hallmark festival of valentines has just been and gone and suffice to say that this year Cupid must have had spicy tastes.  Not only did I receive chilli chocolate but a great looking Chilli Cheese bomb from Shorrocks Cheese. I've yet to taste it but any present that combines two of my favourite foods is bound to be worth waiting for.

Nothing says 'I love you' like a Chilli Cheese Bomb...  

Also in Cupid's quiver this year were these two sauces from Pip's Hot Sauces -  Nagatropolis and La Boca Del Diabolo.  I've not come across Pip's sauces before but looking at their website they seem to have a superb range of flavours and their presentation is second to none with their brown-paper and string wrapped bottles and the great looking white stencilled labels. Their Nagatropolis label has more than a passing resemblance to a certain sci-fi epic. Could this be a new line in cult-film and chilli crossovers?

...Unless it's Nagatropolis Chilli Sauce!

I'll report back on these sauces and cheese when I get a chance. Meantime, I've finished my bottle of Upton Chilli Hot Habanero Sauce (delicious as expected) and am now working through a bottle of Walkerswood Scotch Bonnet Pepper Sauce.  I love Scotch bonnets and this is a really tasty sauce with lots of spice and flavour as well as the heat of the fruity Bonnets.

Meanwhile, we've demolished several blocks of the Tesco Scotch Bonnet Cheddar.  This has to be one of the best chilli cheeses ever, with a fruity tingling heat and great texture.  Even non-chillihead friends love this cheese (although possibly not in the same quantities as we do...)

Home Again...

Well I deserted the chilli plants for two weeks and fled to the sunnier climes of Spain. More specifically the Northwest region of Galicia, home to the town of Padron.

Pimientos de Padron can be found in most tapas bars in the area, a plate full of these small green chillies is fried in olive oil and generously seasoned with salt.  Although predominantly sweet, a percentage of these peppers are hot enough to cause alarm.  The percentage tends to vary from batch to batch and although some claim it's about 10%, I must admit that in my (fairly extensive) investigations it was more like 5%.

Pimientos de Padron

However, one batch prepared by an aunt, contained a red one that literally took my breath away and left me gasping and nearly speechless for a good five minutes.  That'll teach me to be complacent! 

I made sure to collect some seed from her chillies and will be growing them on next year.

Upon my return I visited the chillies that I'd relocated to my parents' garden to see how they had fared in my absence.

Red Scotch Bonnet

Yellow Scotch Bonnet

Squat Frog

Most of the plants are dripping with fruit although we'll need some more sunshine to get the fruit to ripen. Somewhat disappointingly, both Dorset Nagas are devoid of large fruit although there are a few small ones forming. Whether they'll get to a decent size and ripen in this somewhat dismal weather is open to debate.

Loco

Black Pearl

The Chilligrows are proving their worth with the plants within growing to impressive sizes, their branches bending under the weight of the fruit.

The Chilligrows in the greenhouse

Paper Lantern Hab

Paper Lantern Hab

Trinidad Scorpion

Superchilli

Friar's Hat

The hydroponic unit is working overtime

And there's plenty of fruit to show for all the growth. This is the Orange Magnum Habanero

L to R: Joe's Long & Friar's Hat

Joe's Long

Naga Jolokia

Fruit Brust Habanero

I suspect that I'll need to come up with some new recipes to use up what promises to be a bumper crop of chillies.  All we need is a week or so of sunshine to get the fruit ripening before the growing season comes to an end.

Census

With everything growing so fast I though it would be a good time to take stock of all the plants that I have in the garden.

The Black Pearl, Etna and Loco were overwintered, the rest are this year's planting.

These are all yellow and red Scotch Bonnets, I have quite a few...

The plants overwintered from last year haven't performed as well as expected but there are flowers and fruit on a few.

Space is now at a premium in the large chilli house. Most have flowers on the way and a few have pods forming.

Including the Golden Cayenne which has plenty of fruit forming.

Hydroponics are go!

Having a clean out of the freezer reveals all sorts of hidden goodies, including, in this case, four large bags of assorted chillies. What better way to use them than in a volcanic sauce.  It was very much a 'use up what's to hand' sauce so there aren't many ingredients, other than an onion, some garlic, cider vinegar and of course the chillies, which naturally makes it incredibly hot.  To counter some acidity from the vinegar, I added plenty of honey and some lime juice to take the edge off the sugar. The resulting sauce is sweet but with a zingy edge and has enough heat to keep your mouth burning for a while.  Being a mixture of chillies (habaneros, inferno, cayenne, hungarian hot wax plus a few others), the burn is all over the mouth and doesn't relent for a while.

I've yet to design the label for this sauce but it's already been christened 'Honey Trap'

What happens when half a kilo of chillies ends up in just five bottles...

Having completed the chilli house recently, my eye was on the next big project - a venture into hydroponic growing.  I'd spent some time doing some research and wanted a very simple system that I could make on a shoestring budget with minimal running costs.  That counted out aeroponics and NFT systems. I opted for a flood and drain (or ebb and flow) system based on the comprehensive instructions available from Fatalii.net

The principle is simple, when a submerged pump in the lower chamber switches on, it pumps nutrient enriched water into the upper box which is filled with an inert growing medium. When the chamber is flooded, the plant's roots are submerged and it can take on the water and feed it needs.  When the pump switches off, the water drains back into the reservoir, drawing fresh air down onto the roots.  This cycle is repeated anything from 3 to 6 times a day to ensure a steady stream of water, nutrients and oxygen reaches the roots, resulting in increased growth and less risk of disease or rotting from waterlogged plants.

Firstly I selected two large plastic boxes that would stack easily.  The bottom one (the reservoir) has been sprayed black to make it light-tight and then silver so that the sun doesn't overheat the water and nutrient mix.

Drilling a hole through the base of the growing box and into the lid of the res. This is for the overflow.

The overflow has a small hole drilled in the base to ensure minimal water is left in the top container

A mesh is fixed to the top of the overflow so the growing medium doesn't spill down it.

The submerged pump sits in the res and is attached via a hose to the top box

The custom-made screen that fits over the inlet hose to prevent blockage.

Filling with substrate.  I'd positioned the overflow badly but that's something to consider for Mk. II

Test running the system - you can see the water pooling between the clay pebbles.

The system in place and planted up. The hole in the res is so the levels can be checked and be topped up. 

So, now the system is completed, what's the operation like?  The tiny micro-pump in the res is capable of filling the top chamber in just two and a half minutes, much quicker than required (it has to run for 15 minutes because that's the smallest increments on the timer).  Once the timer switches the pump off, the whole chamber drains out in just two minutes.  This rapid drain ensures plenty of fresh air is sucked down onto the roots.

I planted the unit with a Peach Habanero and a Magnum Orange Habanero after carefully washing the soil out of their rootball. I have similar sized plants from the same seed stock growing in soil so it will be interesting to compare the results. The system has only be running for a day so far but, as yet, nothing's died and nothing has broken. Expect regular progress reports.

Away from the Heath-Robinson creations, there's stilll plenty of work to be done in the garden.  It was time to pot on the third wave of replacement seedings which had been growing well in the chilli-house.

This is a mixture of Scotch Bonnets (for making more 'Sunburn' Sauce), Habaneros and Dorset Nagas.

Squat Frog Habaneros and Dorset Nagas

Scotch Bonnets and Squat Frogs

Meanwhile, there's been progress on the Chilli Challenge - the mystery seeds are growing rapidly with some fine-looking specimens in the running...

Claudio & Diana's chillies

The two chillies above were both planted at the same time and kept side by side - it just goes to show how much luck plays a part.

Neil's chillies

Neil's chillies have been growing so tall that he's had to pinch the tops out to restrict their height.  Pinching out promotes more growth lower down and results with a sturdier, bushier plant that's less spindly and has more fruit-bearing branches.

If there are any more competitors out there with update photos, please send them in, we'd love to see how everyone is getting on.

Start the ball rolling

Ok, so weather wise we've only just finished digging ourselves out of the snow so it might seem a bit optimistic to think that spring is already here. However it is officially Imbolc, the Gaelic festival marking the beginning of spring.

The new arrivals, Scotch Bonnets, Dorset Nagas and Orange Habaneros

So what better time to start the ball rolling with the chillies.  The seedlings I planted a few weeks ago are doing well and today I've planted another small batch of seeds to fill in the gaps of those that didn't sprout.



The plants that I overwintered in the Chilli-Grows have been given a tidy up and I'm starting to feed them again.  One plant didn't survive, a Chocolate Habanero, so that's been uprooted and replaced with one of the Black Nagas that I had in a smaller pot.






The Chocolate Habs were a real disappointment last year, of the half a dozen plants that grew, only one produced fruit and that happened to be one that I'd given away to a colleague.  I'm trying Magnum Orange Habaneros this year so we'll see how they perform.


I kept some plants in the coldframe outside with a heater set to 10 degrees to see how they managed.  One or two died due to mold or die-back (where the stems turn brown and hollow).  However, there's a number that seem to have made it through.  They're looking a little worse for wear with some dead stems and lots of dried leaves.  Over the next couple of weeks I'll clean them up and start feeding them in an attempt to kickstart them back into action.

Sunburn being made - it's quite a limited edition

I used up the last of the frozen Yellow Scotch Bonnets  from last season by making some more 'Sunburn' Sauce.  It's a sweet, tropical sauce using mangos and papaya.  It's not too insanely hot but has a nice lingering burn on the mouth and lips, a lot, I suspect, due to the quantities of ginger in there.


'Sunburn' has to be the most popular sauce I've made so I've ensured that there are plenty of Scotch Bonnet seedlings in the propagator.  If I can get enough fruiting then I could have a bit of a production line going for the Sunburn and maybe even sell a few bottles.

Finally, those of you that took up the Chilli Challenge at our wedding need to start getting those seeds planted soon. If you're in need of propagators, pots or advice then drop me a line and there's some helpful hints here