A new season

It's that time of year again, time to start thinking about the new season and what to plant.

The hotter varieties, such as Habanneros can be quite slow growing and therefore benefit from a longer season. 

With the addition of the new grow room and a heated propagator it's the perfect excuse to make an early start to the season.  I've chosen a variety of sees this year to give me a crop for all occasions.

1. Chocolate Habanero - Very hot and full of flavour, I first grew these a few years back and although the plants flourished, they bore no fruit (except for the plants that I gave away). Determined not to be beaten, I'm given them a second try.

2. Yellow Seven Pot Habanero. This year's volcanic choice. Superhot and flavoursome, I'm looking forward to growing these gnarly pods.

3. Pimentos de Padron. I collected these seeds from our family that we visited in Galicia in northern Spain earlier this year, within just a few miles of the town of Padron itself. These randomly spicy tapas peppers are delicious when fried in olive oil and liberally scattered in salt.

4. Black Tongued Scorpion. A new one for me, these chillies resemble black scotch bonnets but with less heat. How could I possibly resist a chilli with a name like a death metal band.

5. Joe's Long Cayenne. This is our chilli challenge for this year so I felt it prudent to plant a few extra seeds for those who join the challenge late.

For planting I used a mixture of a sifted potting compost and plenty of vermiculite. Hopefully this light mix should promote good healthy roots and make the seedlings easy to pot on into a hydroponic system should I choose to do so. Here the planted seed trays are floated in water to dampen the compost. Using this technique rather than watering the compost is less likely to over-compact it.

Once soaked the trays were topped with vermiculite and placed in the heated propagator. This propagator isn't thermostat controlled I've added a thermometer so I can keep track on the temperature. For germination 25-28 C is ideal, once the seeds start sprouting then the temperature can be dropped a little. 

The heater in the chilli room is working well, rigged up to a thermostat it's keeping a steady temperature as shown by this maximum and minimum thermometer which has barely wavered in the month it's been running.

Despite the relatively low temperatures and the limited artificial light, the chillies that I've overwintered are not only coping but positively thriving. The Aji Lemon Drop that grew so prolifically during the summer has refused to stop and despite the severe haircut I gave it, is throwing out new growth already. I've cut back on the hours of light they're receiving to ensure that they're not too monstrous by the time spring comes. 

The Chilli Cave

In the UK chillies are usually grown as annual plants and discarded at the end of each season. However, in their native habitats they are perennials and over the course of years can grow to the size of small trees. With careful nurturing, chillies can make it through the unpredictable UK winters and into the next spring.

The advantage is that the plants will be fully developed in plenty of time for flowering and fruiting and therefore have a longer season and, hopefully, be more productive.

This is particularly useful for the slower-growing superhot varieties such as Habaneros, Nagas and Scorpions, some of which are only hitting their peak just before the first frosts arrive.

In order to prepare the plant for overwintering you need to put the plant into a dormant state.  This can be achieved by cutting back the majority of the growth, just leaving 6 inches or so of main and a few side stems. Cut back on the feeding and watering and leave in a sunny spot with a temperature of around 10-15 degrees centigrade. 

There are more than a few people out there who can offer far better advice than I can so I'll let them do the talking;

Clifton Chilli Club has a great video here.

And chilli-master Matt Simpson offers his sage advice here.

Before I was able to overwinter my most valuable plants, I needed somewhere to store them.  Without enough windowsill space, I had to resort to artificial lights.  I've got a couple of 125W CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) units which although not bright enough to grow a plant throughout the season, are certainly capable of overwintering one.  If I could find a suitably frost-free spot then I would be ready for the winter.

The garden shed was the perfect size but was a little damp and draughty so I would need to seal and insulate before I could install the necessary benches and lights. Thus began the most over-engineered project I've ever undertaken in the name of hot sauce...

Floor is sealed with membrane paint and the underlay is added.

Laminate flooring going down. 

The floor is finished.

New rafters for the ceiling and the first of the plywood panels go up.

The existing light is above the new ceiling so a fluorescent fitting is added to the ceiling.

Meanwhile, battens are screwed to the outside walls, and MDF panels are fixed over Rockwool insulation. 

Cramming insulation into all the gaps that might let in a draught.

The end wall is completed.

Plenty of insulation is added into the ceiling space and last panels screwed into place.

Side wall panelled and yet more insulation going in. 

Finished boxing in the window.  This will have a reflective blind over to keep the light in at night. 

One coat of white paint over everything. Another to follow.

Reflective film is added to the walls.  The diamond pattern on this material helps scatter the light, preventing 'hotspots'.

The blind is added over the window. This can be easily removed in the spring when the room can revert to being a tool shed.

Benches were made from some spare worktops and some scrap 2x4 lumber.  To test their strength I jumped up and down on them - if they can cope with me then the chillies will be a breeze.

The grow lights were then attached to chains, fixed to the ceiling with cup hooks.  This is a quick & easy way of altering their heights to adjust to the growth of the plants.  because CFL lamps don't produce much heat, the bulbs can be placed very close to plants if needs be.

The finished room.  The shelving in the middle will hold the propagators with some additional fluorescent strip lights.

 So the room ready to use.  I need to check the temperatures with a maximum/minimum thermometer to determine how much heating is needed, if any. Humidity may be an issue when the plants start growing in spring but by then it may be mild enough to allow an air vent or fan to be fitted without fear of freezing the plants.

Next step - relocating the chillies...

Long time, no see

Well it's fair to say that there hasn't been an update to this blog for a while. 

There are lots of excuses I could trot out but the long and the short of it is that there hasn't been much to report.

Way back in March I admired my chilli seedlings, spoke encouraging words to them, patted them gently and then deserted them for close on a month. 

Upon my return from the somewhat sunnier climes of India, (complete with a bag of local chillies) I found the horticultural equivalent of a massacre. Over half of my precious seedlings had died. Even my mature plants, carefully overwintered had taken a beating. The scotch bonnets and nagas were infested with greenfly and despite root-to-root resuscitation eventually joined the compost-heap in the sky. 

Some of the surviving superhots

Some of the overwintered chillies in the hothouse

Why this is, I don't honestly know. The plants had been sprayed several times with organic pesticide but after a brief respites, the greenfly returned. The traditional remedy of spraying with soapy water only produced squeaky-clean aphids so finally I turned to a more rudimentary and brutal solution. I simply took the plants outside and blasted with a hosepipe on a fine spray. As unscientific as this drastic remedy might be, it not only removed the live aphids but also removed dying or dead leaves and cleared off the sticky residue that aphids leave behind which can inhibit photosynthesis. 

This is by no means a permanent solution and will require close scrutiny but it's eco-friendly and seems to have done the plants no lasting damage 

Meantime, to replace the missing plants I've initiated a second round of planting. Plenty of Scotch Bonnets, Dorset Nagas and assorted Habs have been sown and are progressing well on the (occasionally) sunny windowsill. Due to the late planting and the potentially iffy summer weather it's debatable if they'll fruit well this year but if I can overwinter them with more success this year then I'll have a headstart next season.

Replacement Scotch Bonnets

A second batch of superhots and Scotch Bonnets

Making the most of the sunshine

In other news, we recently visited the Eastnor Castle Chilli Festival and a good time was had by all. Despite the unexpectedly long queues (bought on by the unexpectedly good weather) we had plenty of time to peruse the chilli-ware stalls, sample the Indian and Mexican food on offer and even visit a slightly peculiar cookery demonstration (It was certainly an education learning how 'authentic Mexican cooking' uses soy sauce!)

That aside, there was plenty to attract the visitor, chilli-head or otherwise. The music was lively and fun, the food and drink was both plentiful and delicious and Clifton Chilli Club's Chilli Eating Contest was equally entertaining, hard-fought and wincingly brutal.

We did sample products from nearly all the chilli exhibitors on display and, by and large, were impressed. However, with so many small companies jumping on the chilli bandwagon, it's becoming harder to tell their products apart. 

It's not hard to make a chilli sauce and too many people are settling for a generic product with no unique selling point. Upton Cheyney use lots of home-grown ingredients in their delicious sauces and even smoke their own chipotles (still the best chipotle sauce I've ever tasted). Mr Vickies has the amazing Indian spices to define their brand. Grim Reaper foods have matched up their scorching sauces and chocolates with slick marketing and branding. Fat Man Chilli was impressive with the chillies in the sauce carefully matched to the alcoholic spirit used. There are plenty more to mention but all to many producers settling for a naga-laden hot sauce with no character or real flavour. Lets see some real originality in the flavour combinations.

Rant over.

Our modest haul from Eastnor Chilli Fest.  All of these products are fantastic and come highly recommended

Back in September we launched our chilli challenge at our wedding and I've received a few photos from participants.  Looks like some very successful growing, despite the odd weather.  Please keep the photos coming, I'm excited to see how everyone is getting on.

Claudio & Diana's

Lisa & Andy's (the ones on the right) 

Emma & James'

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.

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

Marching in two by two...

I haven't needed to top-up the pond for a while...

With all the rain we've had recently you could be forgiven for building an ark. The ground is sodden through, far to wet to do any planting outdoors.Now normally this wouldn't bother me with regards to the chillies. After all, they're either still indoors or in one of the growhouses.

A rather soggy-looking garden

However, whilst the rain itself might be welcomed by the water-boards, unfortunately it's accompanied by plummeting temperatures and a lack of sunlight. And these have had a detrimental effect on the chillies.The long and the short of it is that everything has just slowed to a crawl. The cold, damp atmosphere is the opposite of what the plants thrive in and without any sunshine, the fruit that has already grown is refusing to ripen.

The sorry-looking chillies in the allotment polytunnel have not made any great progress.

Orozco and Moroccan seedlings straining for sunlight

Pasilla Bajio seedlings

So, with all of the seedlings and more mature plants on hold until the weather breaks, I decided to turn my attention to some more seeds.I know it's getting a little late in the season to be planting any more seeds (and it's not even as if I have homes for all the plants I already have) but I had a couple of good reasons to plant some more.Firstly, not all of the seeds I planted did as well as others and in one or two cases it's left me with just one or two specimens of a particular variety.  I've already had a couple of more mature plants keel over on me for no reason and some have been less fruitful than others. So a few back-up plants wouldn't go amiss, particularly of the more tender or interesting varieties.

The propagator loaded ready for growing

Secondly, I picked up a Jiffy 7 propagator cheaply the other day as was keen to try it out compared to the various methods I've used so far this year for propagation.The Jiffy 7 system is a clean and simple way of raising seedings, using compressed coir (coconut husk) pellets that swell up in warm water as the planting medium. Once the seedings are of a sufficient size, the netted plugs can then be transplanted straight into larger pots without touching the roots and risking damage or root shock. 

One week into the trial...

...the seeds are beginning to show through

Now these pellets aren't as cheap as a bag of compost and a few seed trays so in order to ensure that none go to waste I've planted two or three seeds in each to maximise the chance of a seedling taking. In the case of more than one sprouting then the weaker ones will be pinched out.

They're being grown on top of the aquarium to benefit from the same heat source as the other seeds I've germinated this year so I'll be keeping a close eye on them to seed how they fare compared to the seed trays, peat pots and the toilet-roll tubes that I've used up to now.

The forest grows...

When people find out about my ongoing quest to fill the house and garden with chillies, their reactions tend to vary from boredom to incredulity (rapidly followed by boredom).  However, once in a while you come across someone equally misguided and you share a brief moment of camaraderie.

One such event happened recently when a colleague of mine turned up with a brown envelope of chilli seeds he'd collected whilst on holiday in Sicily. Knowing of my interest he'd scooped up the seeds and drawn a hasty sketch of the chilli pepper on the side of the envelope for me.  I now have a number of these envelopes of mystery seeds people have given me.  It's  all part of the fun waiting to see what emerges and then trying to match it to the appropriate variety. Needless to say they're now on top of the aquarium waiting to pop their heads up.

My collection of mystery seeds.

Meanwhile the chillies I recently transferred to the grow-room are shooting away.  Those that I'd planted in the home-made toilet roll pots have fared very well and potting them on has been a breeze with no damage to the delicate roots.  I soaked the seedlings before transplanting them and gently tore the flaps of soggy cardboard  away to allow the roots to grow down into the new compost.  Definitely a technique I'll continue to use.

The DIY seedling pots in the grow-room.

Speaking of DIY projects, I've been making mini-propagators for the developing seedings that I keep on the windowsill.  I was finding plant-pots a little expensive for all the seedlings I have so I've been using cheap plastic cups instead with holes strategically melted into the bottom for drainage with the aid of a hot skewer.  At 2p each it's definitely a cost effective method.

Making the pots

For the propagator lids I've been cutting the bottom off Pepsi bottles and with holes once again melted into them, they're the perfect size to fit over the plastic cups.

Making the mini-proagator lids

They seem to be doing the trick and although the seedlings aren't coming on quite as fast as those in the grow-room, it's allowing me to put the vulnerable seedlings onto the window-ledges which, at this time of year, would be too cold or draughty for plants this young.

The finished item