Spring has sprung

Well I’ve been a little quiet on the blog front for a while. Truth be told I haven’t been doing much on the chilli-growing front, just allowing the plants to get on with the business of growing and gradually shifting some to the greenhouse outside to harden off.

Pimientos de Padron

I managed to escape for a holiday to Morocco for a well deserved break (well, at least in my opinion it was well deserved) and left the chilli plants at the tender mercies of my family & friends with strict instructions not to forget to water them.

Thankfully I got back to find that none had dried out (I’ve got my assistants well trained!).  However the greenfly had made an unwelcome return and decimated a couple of the plants, causing leaves to curl and shrivel and flowers to drop.  Normally I’d take the eco-friendly approach and spray them with soapy water to get rid of the aphids but I wasn’t feeling in a very forgiving or patient mood and instead treated them to the horticultural equivalent of a napalm strike.

Hopefully the plants will make a recovery but I’m going to have to be extra-vigilant to ensure they don’t make a comeback.

Hungarian Hot Wax chilli

Whilst in Morocco I did buy a bag of dried chillies from the souk. I’m not sure what variety they are but the pods are a couple of inches long and the skins look very thin.  I’ve not tried them for heat yet but the shopkeeper  assured me that they were ‘very hot’.  Judging from some of the chilli sauce I tried in the night market I don’t doubt him. I’ve extracted seeds from a couple of pods and will see how I get on growing them.

Meanwhile the plants at work have been doing well, putting on lots of growth and plenty of flowers.  Of particular note is the Friar’s Hat chilli, which is looking very sturdy and sporting plenty of immature fruit.  I’ve been pinching out the tips of the plants to prevent them from getting too tall and to encourage them to throw out more side shoots and put more energy into producing flowers and fruit.

Friar's Hat

Padron

The great chilli give-away has continued apace with more little plants finding new homes amongst friends and colleagues.  I’ve even taken a few up to the poly-tunnel on the work’s allotment.  I had a few Padron peppers that hadn’t fared too well at home (I think in part due to the overcrowding) so I’ve taken a risk and planted them directly into the soil in the tunnel as a sort of kill-or-cure remedy.  Joining them are a few of the Hungarian Hot Wax chillies I had going spare.  It still may be a little cold for them at night so I’ve left them under cloches as well for added protection. We’ll see how they get on – I suspect that if they survive and manage to gain a foothold in the poor soil then the resulting chillies will have a real kick to them.

Padron chillies at the back of the polytunnel and Hungarian Hot wax chillies under the cloches

Back at home, with a battle for supremacy raging between the chillies and the tomatoes for window-sill space I’ve had to find some more room outside.  I’ve purchased a small growhouse to go on the patio and it’s allowed me to shift most of the plants outside.

These little growhouses seem like a neat solution and are reasonably attractive in the garden as well.  The downside is the build quality of these houses is disappointingly low. Even the sturdier (and more expensive) houses are still very flimsy and badly finished.  I had toyed with the idea of making my own, along similar lines to the one I built last year.  It wouldn’t have been any cheaper but certainly would have been more substantial. Unfortunately, a lack of time forced me to compromise and go with a flat-pack version instead.

Maybe next year…

The great chilli give-away

With the chilli plants rapidly overrunning the house it was time to thin their numbers. So friends, family, colleagues and even random passer-bys have had chilli plants of varying pungency thrust upon them.  All in all, within this last fortnight I’ve given away over 50 plants in an attempt to free up some space at home.

So why the need for more space? Well, other than wanting to actually see out of the windows once in a while, I’ve had other veg seeds on the go.  Whilst growing chillies may be the current obsession, it’s difficult to survive on a diet of them alone.  So with the windowsills now cleared I’ve been able to get the tomatoes, sweetcorn and sweet peppers on the go.

The inevitable sunflower race is under way. Needless to say, I'm currently losing. 

Carrots and peas are already sprouting in the raised beds, safely protected from the frosts by a cloche and French and Borlotti beans are just about to join them.

Along with a colleague of mine we’ve take ownership of a small allotment patch close to work in which we’ve already planted red onion sets, a vital ingredient in all the chutneys I’m planning to make. With more peas and beans soon to go in we can look forward to a summer of fresh veg.

Meanwhile, not wishing to neglect the chillies at home, I’ve been potting on some of the more vigorous growers and moving them outside into the heated cold-frame/mini-greenhouse.  The 135w heater is performing well, heating up the small space very quickly and efficiently. Even on the coldest nights it’s not dropped below 15 degrees and with the weather getting milder it will be needed less and less.

No longer a cold-frame, more of a hot house.

Meanwhile the various chillies at work have been flowering and tiny fruit have already appeared on the Orozco plant that I overwintered from last year.  As soon as there's a few more I'll get some photos taken.

Potting on

It's been a busy weekend and with the chillies growing rapidly there have been a large number that needed potting on.  With space on the windowsills at a premium it was time to move some of the plants to the mini-greenhouse outside.  However, nothing is ever that easy. Despite some days of fabulous sunshine it's still too cold to put the plants into the greenhouse without some form of heating.

The heater wired up to a thermostat.

So after a quick browse of the internet I tracked down a 3ft long greenhouse heater.  After some Heath Robinson wiring to a thermostat I've now got it up and running, always keeping the greenhouse above 15 Celsius.  This should protect the plants at night from the worst of the late spring frosts but without the running costs being high enough to bankrupt me.

The Padron Peppers in their new home.

As spring moves on then the greenhouse will probably reach much higher temperatures without the aid of the heater so the thermostat will ensure that electricity is not being wasted when mother nature can so the heating for free. The Pimientos de Padron have now been rehoused outside and the spaces left rapidly filled by the newly potted on plants.

A Superchilli grown in a plastic cup showing its healthy root system.

The plants grown in the plastic cups have done exceptionally well, developing plenty of healthy roots right the way to the bottom of the deep cups.  These have been potted on into 5" pots, large enough to provide space to grow, without taking up too much space or compost.

I've also been planting other veg, so the garden is completely filled with chillies.  The peas and carrots have been planted straight into the raised beds under cloches whilst the tomatoes have replaced the chillies in the propagators on top of the fish tank. With more veg due to be planted over the next few weeks, hopefully I should be able to cook up my salsas, chutneys and sauces with as much of my own ingredients as possible.

Hot Padron

So I’ve been growing the Pimientos de Padron for some time now and with the novelty of sunshine (plus a little judicious pollinating via a paintbrush) I’ve got a number of chillies slowly growing.

Now the thing is with Pimientos is that approximately one in ten is hot whilst the rest maintain a refreshing sweetness.  When I’ve eaten them before I’ve been somewhat disappointed to only once or twice catch a hot one.  So how did the home-grown ones fare? The small batch that I gave to Claudio back at Christmas all turned out to be hot (really quite fiercely hot at that!) so I had high hopes for this second wave.

We cooked them up last night in plenty of scalding olive oil and with a generous seasoning of crunchy sea salt, patted them dry on kitchen roll and tucked in. They were all hot!  Every last one of them was hotter than any Padrons I’ve had before.  They were of course delicious as well with a lovely fresh sweetness alongside the heat.

So why, of the dozen I’ve grown so far, have they all been hot?  They’ve certainly been grown in a hot environment and with a lack of sunlight they’ve taken a long time to mature so maybe slow growing helps as well?  We’ll have to see how hot subsequent batches are to determine what the key factors are.

In the meantime, I can’t wait for the next bundle to mature…

Summer already?

Hungarian Hot Wax on the office windowsill

Well, not really but it certainly felt like it earlier with the sun streaming through the windows at work.  The reception area (a.k.a. the Greenhouse) was sweltering and the poor chilli plants certainly felt it. Interestingly enough, with the Padron and Orozco wilting under the relentless heat, the Friar's Hat seemed more than happy.  Well they better get used to the heat, after all, it's only February and come the summer we'll be growing some of the most stressed (and subsequently hottest) chillies in the neighbourhood.

Orozco feeling the effects of the heat.

A somewhat wilted Pimientos de Padron.

Meanwhile, back at home the chillies are progressing nicely.  The larger of the plants sown in December are now large enough to need support (wooden kebab skewers do the job perfectly) and even the slower-growing hot varieties are doing well.

Black Naga seedlings

Gino chillies

The mysterious seeds given to me at work (dubbed Gino Chilli) are also growing well.  Can't wait until they fruit so I can have a stab at identifying the variety.  Sadly the second batch of Cherry Chillies haven't sprouted yet either, which is a shame as I had some stuffed with goat's cheese on the weekend and they were delicious.  Also a bit slow on the uptake is the Pasillia Bajio chillies, a variety used in Mexican mole sauces, which I'm also very keen to grow.  I have faith that they will come eventually, I'm just not very good at being patient.

The younger seedlings thrive under the grow light. Once they get older they're moved to a windowsill.

Chilli Chutney

Following the success of the Friar's Hat chilli jam (unofficially dubbed 'Frisky Friar') I decided to have another go at making a chilli preserve, this time aiming for something a bit more like a chutney but with a fruity flavour.

I rooted around for ingredients and put together what I though would be a winning concoction (actually it was just what I had left in the cupboard).

1 large sweet pepper.
1 ripe mango.
4 small onions.
8 cloves of garlic.
Juice of 1 lime
500g jam sugar
500ml cider vinegar
2 tomatoes (de-seeded)
8 Thai chillies
A handful of coriander
A tablespoon of grated ginger

The expertly chopped mango (not by me I must add)

The ingredients ready for the blitzer

The fruit and veg were thrown into the food processor and given a quick blitzing. Meanwhile the sugar was dissolved in the vinegar over a low heat.

The blitzed ingredients

The mixture was thrown into the vinegar and bought to a rolling boil.  The heat was then turned down and the mixture left to simmer until the quantity had reduced by half.

After an hour of boiling vinegar the house was quite fragrant...

Finally, after being allowed to cool the mixture was ladled into sterilised jam jars.

As for flavour, it's got a mild spicy heat from the chillies and a tang of coriander.  Meanwhile the ginger adds a lovely tickle of heat at the back of the throat.  It'll be unveiled to the (selected) public this weekend at a cheese and wine party so we'll get their verdict then. With the Frisky Friar I was so keen to share the jam I ended up giving most of it away to friends and family. With only four jars of this new concoction, then it's quite a limited edition. I may have to limit my generosity to just those with the highest bribes...

A chilli by any other name...

Well as the forest continues its relentless growth and windowsill space becomes more valuable than Manhattan real estate there have been some encouraging successes along the way.  The eight Black Naga seeds planted have all sprouted and are looking healthy. They did take a long time to appear but I understand that this is not unusual with the hotter varieties.

The Black Naga chilli seedlings

Likewise, nearly all the yellow scotch bonnet chillies have sprouted.  These were seeds collected from a chilli that I bought from Sainsbury's and rescued before the rest of it was consigned to a particularly tasty Levi Roots' curry. The fact that so many have grown is encouraging, particularly considering that the cost of two scotch bonnet chillies wasn't a great deal more than the cost of a packet of seeds.

I have had one failure, of the five Red Cherry seeds I planted, not one has reared its head. It may have been a duff packet of seeds or poor planting conditions, too hot, too cold, to damp or dry etc..  Thankfully I do have some spare seeds so I'll give them another try. If that fails then I may sulk a little and pretend I never wanted them in the first place.

The hall of shame, labels from some of the seeds that failed to sprout

With so many varieties on the go it's been something of a challenge keeping tabs on them all. It's cost a fortune in plant labels but, fingers crossed, all the chillies are correctly named and will remain so.  The traditional plant labels and waterproof marker are an easy and cost-effective way of marking up plants but it's hard to find them attractive and for the full grown plants I want something more aesthetically pleasing that won't wash off in the rain or fade in the sun.

The finished stamped copper plant labels.

Once again I've managed to find the most complicated method of doing it but I'm happy with the results.  I've obtained some thin copper plant labels from the local garden centre and a letter-punch set from Screwfix.  It's tedious and fiddly work and my first few attempts were very amateurish, but the labels will last and once the copper obtains a nice verdigris they should mellow into the garden nicely.