Potting On

The seedlings on the windowsills have been doing well and it was time to pot them. This was the second batch of seedlings, planted to replace the plants I lost back at Easter. I'd planted multiple seeds into small pots and used a large amount of vermiculite in the mix. The seedlings had developed fantastic root systems, helped along by the open light mix of the compost.  I gently separated them and planted them into their own pots with a compost mix containing Perlite to help keep the air and moisture into the soil.

The root systems on these little seedlings are really impressive.

The scotch Bonnet seedlings all potted on into the obligatory plastic cups.

The new chilli house is working well and even on an overcast and rainy day is at a comfortable 20 c. I'll have to add some shelving onto the back wall to take some of the smaller pots and maximise the use of the space.

The new chilli house is packed full

Having tried my had at chilli burgers a while back and been a bit disappointed by the lack of spice, I decided to try again with a little more kick in the new batch.

The recipe was simple, a kilo of lean minced beef, half a dozen garlic cloves, salt, pepper and four of the largest red Habaneros I could find.  All blitzed and mixed, it made 8 burgers (I treated myself to a Lakeland Burger Press) and we cooked them over a good old-fashioned charcoal barbecue.

The huge Habs ready to go into the burgers

The Habanero burgers were a big hit.

The burgers were spot on for heat, having enough chilli in them to get the lips tingling and with a bit of lasting burn but without being too hot for those not used to the heat.

We popped into Cheltenham food festival the other day to sample all the fantastic produce on display.  I love food festivals, trying all the samples and talking to the actual producers of the food makes a pleasant change from the supermarket shop.

The haul of chilli produces from Cheltenham Food Festival

I took the opportunity to restock with Upton Cheyney's fantastic Chipotle sauce and we got some more of the Chilli Peanut butter from Fire Foods, having used most of the last jar to make a superb satay sauce for chicken.

I do realise that I have quite a few chilli sauces now, perhaps it's about time I started using some up before buying any more...

There are a few unusual hazards to growing chillies but I never thought cats would be one.  However, this is the sight that greeted me this morning when I went into the garden. One of the many cats in the neighbourhood (all of whom treat our garden fence as a highway) had jumped onto the roof of the small chilli house and gone straight through. Somebody needs to cut down on the Whiskas.

Time for a new roof

Fixing the roof with a sturdier sheet of polycarbonate wasn't too hard, the same can't be said for the poor Friar's Hat chilli that was underneath it at the time - a rather extreme case of pinching out.

The battered Friar's Hat

Spring is springing

This year's batch of seeds are doing well with most beginning to show their heads in the propagator. I've planted some Habanero varieties I've not grown before, including Peach Habs, Fruit Burst, Fatali and the wonderfully named Squat Frog. How could I resist growing a plant with such a great name.

Doset Naga seedlings

Habanero Fruit Burst

Habanero Squat Frog

The seeds came from Simpson's Seeds and the packets contained lots of helpful growing information about the varieties.  Certainly something that other seed providers could do with paying heed to.

Trinidad Scorpion, overwintered from last year

Red and Yellow Scotch Bonnets, overwintered from last year

 Most of the overwintered plants are beginning to throw out new shoots and leaves.  The Trinidad Scorpion plants are looking particularly good so I have high hopes for them.  I planted them very late last year so didn't expect to see any flowers or fruit.  Because they were so small I didn't cut them back hard before the winter so they've had a head start on some of the other plants.

Red and Yellow Scotch Bonnet seedlings

The Scotch Bonnet seedlings have been potted on to the party cups.  I've used plenty of perlite in the compost to improve aeration and water retention. Sadly the compost I used was very poor with lots of sticks and lumps in the bag.  I've sieved out the worst so hopefully it should be ok for the seedlings.  I understand the environmental reasons for avoiding peat in compost but it really does do a much better job for seeds and delicate seedlings.

Snakebite!

The grow-room is looking a bit more organised after a tidy up of the trays.

When I started growing chillies I did make a rule that I wouldn't bother growing any of the super-hot chillies, anything that was so insanely hot that I wouldn't be able to cook with it without the aid of an Biological warfare suit and a trained paramedic on standby.  However, over time most rules become guidelines and guidelines have a tendency to become suggestions.

Enter the Black Naga chilli...

Now whether it was the added difficulty and challenge of growing super-hots, the instability of the strain (you may end up with no dark fruit at all) or just the amazingly cool name, I decided that this chilli had to be my first attempt at growing a superhot. A relation of the fearsome Bhut Jolokia (some claim just a Chocolate Bhut rather than a new strain in it's own right) this sinister and ugly pod rocks in at a mere 800,000 SHU, so that's roughly 250 times hotter than a Jalapeno.

So for this very important chilli I decided to take a little more care with my planting. I'd read that when planting seeds it would be useful to add vermiculite to the compost as this retains nutrients and stops the compost drying out.  Likewise, adding perlite when potting on seedlings would help drainage and improve aeration.  I also decided to test out some small peat pots to see if they were an improvement on my homemade toilet tissue pots - just like the cardboard pots, when roots start growing through the pot you plant the whole thing on into a larger pot, avoiding disturbing the fragile roots.

From left to right: The empty pots, the perlite mix, the vermiculite mix with seed on top and the final planted pot.

So for this experiment I've filled the top half of the pot with a compost/vermiculite mix for the seed to grow in, and the lower half of the pot with a perlite/compost mix for the seedling's roots to develop in.  Seems something of an effort but we'll have to judge from the results to see if it's worth the extra time and trouble. The seeds were placed on top of the vermiculite mix and a thin layer of the same mixture sprinkled over the top.  They were then gently watered, to avoid disturbing the seeds, and placed over the warmest part of the aquarium propagator.

I await with keen interest to see, firstly if the peat pots and vermiculite mix make a huge difference, and secondly, to see if the Naga does actually bear any of the dark brown/black fruit that it's rumoured to produce. Roll on the summer!