Pepper/chilli plants flowering looking for advice

Outkast_IRE

Heroditas wrote: »

Transplanted 12 of my cayenne and jalapeño plants from 3" to 4" pots today. Still sitting on the windowsill in the front bedroom for the time being.
I'll tell you one thing, I'd never use that Lidl compost again, it's rubbish. Dries out far too easily and won't hold any moisture. Either that or if you use a tad too much water it turns into a horrible sludge.
I'm sticking with the likes of Shamrock or similar from now on.
7 tomato plants out in the greenhouse, along with a scotch bonnet plant too.

Tomorrow I'm removing the 15 bell pepper, habanero and naga plants from the Aerogarden and potting them.
They shall also go upstairs for the time being.

I also appear to have two Moruga Scorpions sprouting.
Shaping up to be a scorcher of a summer!!

I honestly cant reccomend the John innes based compost enough and mix it through with equal parts perlite and vermiculite. Got it all in the local b&q .

Technophobe

I use John Innes too and find it very good...

Many of my chilli seedlings are struggling to put on growth, and remain quite small at this stage...Hopefully the milder weather and brighter days will get them moving....

talkabout

Is that the John Innes No 2 that most people are using?

Outkast_IRE

talkabout wrote: »

Is that the John Innes No 2 that most people are using?

Ya i think number two would be the correct one for seedlings/young plants and then onto number 3 for mature plants.
And as i said a bit of perlite and vermiculite works well with them.
I also reccomend to people to water from the bottom rather than the top if they are potted.

talkabout

Would you use No 3 as you pot on? My plants are currently in 10cm pots but i'm nearly ready to move to larger pots. I was hoping to only pot on once more this year but i think i'll have two more moves.

Outkast_IRE

talkabout wrote: »

Would you use No 3 as you pot on? My plants are currently in 10cm pots but i'm nearly ready to move to larger pots. I was hoping to only pot on once more this year but i think i'll have two more moves.

At that size no2 or 3 would be perfectly fine.
I would proably use no2 again as techincally its actually john innes no1 they should of been planted in from seed orginally.
have a glance at this.

http://www.johninnes.info/about.htm

Technophobe

A count of my Chilli plants and Sweet peppers of what I have at present...

Chilli Pepper:

Anaheim: 4 plants (from self-saved seed)
Cayenne: 7 plants
Habanero: 2 plants
Jalapeno: 5 plants
Satan’s Kiss: 4 plants

Sweet:

Bell Boy: 6
California Wonder: 1
Chocolate Miniature: 6
Mila’s Bulgarian: 1
Pimento: 4


I have a few more of Sweet Pepper just sown but not too pushed whether they make it or not, what with all the above! No doubt there may be a casualty or two along the way, but looking forward to sampling some of these.
Don’t ask me about all the tomatoes I have!!

Outkast_IRE

The chillgrow has arrived i bought 2 and have planted a range of plants in them, some are bigger than others, as some of my chilli plants were planted later than others, and some are more low bushy varities than tall plants.

Here is long slim cayenne, purple jalapeno and thai hot in a chillgrow planter.



Here is ring of fire, prarie fire and thai hot, in another chillgrow planter.


Here is purple jalapeno and birds eye in normal pots.


Here is birds eye , ring of fire, and various others


Here is a close up of the purple jalapeno, notice how this plant leaves have a purple tinge through them and the older first leaves are pure purple


I ran out of large pots before i got to these guys, im considering advertising them for a swap for some other plant types if anybody is down south and interested.

Heroditas

Apologies for the lack of updates from myself recently.
Anyway, all my chilli plants, bar three Moruga Scorpions, and my tomato plants are now fully transplanted from their "baby pots" and are in the glasshouse.
I'm keeping the Morugas in the house for another short while until they grow a bit more and are a bit hardy.
The great news is that I'm already seeing some chillies sprouting on my cayenne plants!

Technophobe

Looking good Heroditas...
..thought you were supposed to be sharing that greenhouse!!

Heroditas

Technophobe wrote: »

Looking good Heroditas...
..thought you were supposed to be sharing that greenhouse!!

Shush you, you troublemaker! :P

In the next few weeks I'm going to be building a cat run going from the glasshouse along the fence where the flower bed is.
Anyway, they still can sun themselves on the cold frame!

Sulla Felix

I gave chilli growing a go in the spring with a devon chilli farm set I got for xmas. Nothing grew except a bit of mold.. I guess combination of cold and damp, even though I followed the instructions.

It's there any point in giving it another go this late? Wouldn't expect a crop but at least they might germinate this time since the big south facing window gets a but of sun now.

Denis322

Sulla Felix wrote: »

I gave chilli growing a go in the spring with a devon chilli farm set I got for xmas. Nothing grew except a bit of mold.. I guess combination of cold and damp, even though I followed the instructions.

It's there any point in giving it another go this late? Wouldn't expect a crop but at least they might germinate this time since the big south facing window gets a but of sun now.

You could always grow them just to overwinter them. That way, you'd have strong plants next year and have bumper crop. Plus, there's always a chance of a few small chillis this year from easy to grow varieties, as if you keep them indoors they can produce chillis well into November and later.

Outkast_IRE

Sulla Felix wrote: »

I gave chilli growing a go in the spring with a devon chilli farm set I got for xmas. Nothing grew except a bit of mold.. I guess combination of cold and damp, even though I followed the instructions.

It's there any point in giving it another go this late? Wouldn't expect a crop but at least they might germinate this time since the big south facing window gets a but of sun now.

Ok simple to sort ....... What varieties did you get to grow ?
When you planted the seeds in some compost to germinate did you keep it in a very warm area ? like a hot press or similar ?

redser7

Sulla Felix wrote: »

I gave chilli growing a go in the spring with a devon chilli farm set I got for xmas. Nothing grew except a bit of mold.. I guess combination of cold and damp, even though I followed the instructions.

It's there any point in giving it another go this late? Wouldn't expect a crop but at least they might germinate this time since the big south facing window gets a but of sun now.

Sow some seed now but also buy in some plants. Go to a good garden centre and you could get a nice well maintained and mature plant in flower. A bit of a cheat but just for this year

Sulla Felix

Denis322 wrote: »

You could always grow them just to overwinter them. That way, you'd have strong plants next year and have bumper crop. Plus, there's always a chance of a few small chillis this year from easy to grow varieties, as if you keep them indoors they can produce chillis well into November and later.

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Ok simple to sort ....... What varieties did you get to grow ?
When you planted the seeds in some compost to germinate did you keep it in a very warm area ? like a hot press or similar ?

redser7 wrote: »

Sow some seed now but also buy in some plants. Go to a good garden centre and you could get a nice well maintained and mature plant in flower. A bit of a cheat but just for this year

Ok, I've started another set. Jalapeno, Ring of Fire, Hungarian Hot Wax. In their tray, in the hot press. Let's see!


I also bought a cayenne from the gardening shop... iddqd


Follow on question: How viable are seeds from packaged foods? I've a jar of bee-yoo-tee-ful hot and sweet cherry peppers in the fridge. How likely would the seeds be to germinate?

redser7

They could well germinate but there are a couple of problems. They mightn't come true and produce the same peppers. Also they might not be suitable for our climate. There are types that will do well in our northern summers and its a good idea to try these if you want a decent yield. Some even do well enough in a poor Irish summer.

Heroditas

Rule of thumb - the hotter the chilli, the more difficult it is to propagate the seeds.
I usually get about a 75% success rate with my seeds, falling to about 30% for the really hot ones.

Outkast_IRE

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Ok, I've started another set. Jalapeno, Ring of Fire, Hungarian Hot Wax. In their tray, in the hot press. Let's see!


I also bought a cayenne from the gardening shop... iddqd


Follow on question: How viable are seeds from packaged foods? I've a jar of bee-yoo-tee-ful hot and sweet cherry peppers in the fridge. How likely would the seeds be to germinate?

Ok key things, tips I used when germinating before I got propogator is the following
1. Ensure they are only a few millimetres under the compost.
2. I assume you gave the compost a good wetting.
3. If you are rewetting the compost, use water at room temperature not straight from the tap the cold water wont help.
4. The hot press is only a good spot if its actually very warm most of the time, you would be surprised that a lot of hot presses aren't actually that hot anymore thanks to very well insulated cylinders etc. The next best thing is a spot in the sun on a windowsill with a card over the top to stop the light until they germinate.

When potting up I highly recommend a John Innes based compost and mix it with perlite and vermiculite.

Seeds from chillis you buy there are problems.

1. You don't know the health condition of the parent plant, I was unfortunate enough to take some scotch bonnet seeds from a fruit whose parent plant must of been suffering from bacterial spot, and the seeds were infected too. This could mean you spend a month or two growing before the symptoms of the disease show up. For how cheap the seeds are to buy, I wouldn't take the risk.

2. As previous poster stated, there is a likelihood of ending up with a hybrid plant, again you wont know usually till it fruits itself months down the line and the fruits look nothing like the ones you took it from.

Heroditas

Quick update for you guys. Just sticking up a photo of some of my plants in the glasshouse. As you can see, I'm now getting a crop!

talkabout

Those plants are looking fantastic, mine are very slow this year. Whats your secret

Heroditas

talkabout wrote: »

Those plants are looking fantastic, mine are very slow this year. Whats your secret

I planted the seeds in an Aerogarden in mid February so they had full-spectrum lights shining on them 16 hours a day in the utility room which was nice and toasty with the tumble dryer and washing machine running a lot.
I then repotted them around the second week of April and had them up on the window sill in the spare bedroom facing west for another few weeks before finally repotting them again and putting them out in the glasshouse about 4 weeks ago.

talkabout

It certainly worked, they look very healthy. I'm happy enough with my own but i'm a few weeks behind on last year. I have one or two chilli's coming on my Cherry Bomb and Ring of Fire.

rgiller

Are you keeping them in 3" pots or are those a bit bigger? It's hard to tell the scale in the pictures. Do they get fed with anything?

Heroditas

Some are 4", some are 6".
A load of them now need to get bumped up into bigger pots because the roots are filling the pots now.
I feed them Chilli Focus once a week.

Edit: they're all 6" pots in that picture.

Outkast_IRE

Was away on hols the last few weeks but I have an update with photos here now. the main points are .

1. Look at the ones in the black chilli grow containers they have raced ahead of the standard pots especially the purple jalapeno.
2. The last few weeks have seen massive growth in the plants, I would imagine all of them will be flowering in the next few weeks.

General Look


Purple Jalapeno Chilligrow Pot.


Purple Jalapeno Flower Close up


Purple Jalapeno Fruit Beginning to Emerge


Long Slim Cayanne In chilli grow container


3 plants in Chilli grow container


Another 3 plants in Chilli grow container


Purple Jalapeno in standard pot


Standard Pots

Denis322

My Dorset Naga is only about 6 1/2 inches and I can see a few flowers coming through.
Do you think I should wait for them come up and then cut them off or do you think I should leave them be?

Outkast_IRE

Denis322 wrote: »

My Dorset Naga is only about 6 1/2 inches and I can see a few flowers coming through.
Do you think I should wait for them come up and then cut them off or do you think I should leave them be?

What size container is the Naga in ?

Personally I would leave them be, and pollinate them if you want fruit. At this time of the year if you keep cutting off flower heads you could be into Oct/Nov before harvest.

I have found the plant will still grow plenty when fruiting once its in a big enough pot.

Denis322

They're in 6 inch pots. I'll leave them be so. Thanks

Heroditas

I sampled one of my cayenne chillies last night. It's still a relatively light green colour.
Quite sweet and not too much heat. I'll have to leave them until they're a nice red colour before trying them again.
Far too mild for me!

Outkast_IRE

Denis322 wrote: »

They're in 6 inch pots. I'll leave them be so. Thanks

6 inch pot would be the minimum for these plants, I use 6 inch pots when I have multiples of the same plant and don't need a bumper crop from 1 plant.

If I had only 1 plant I would aim for 9 or 12 inch large pot.

Second Captain

Hi,
I have a question for the chili gurus. I bought a 'Pick-a-Hot-Pep' chili plant in April. It was about 10" tall and had a decent crop of about 15 green and red fruit on it already but only one or two flower buds. Transferred it to a 9" pot on a window sill. The peppers originally on it were all harvested over the first month and there has been one or two more produced each week which is a production rate that suites me fine. The plant itself has not gotten much taller but has produced lots of small leaves in clusters around the ends of the main branches.

Now, I think it enjoyed the recent sunny weather because now there is suddenly about 100 flower buds on it (yes, I counted). To this novice, it seems an unfeasibly large number of potential fruit for such a small plant to produce and just physically support at the same time. Should I remove a proportion of them or just count myself lucky?

I also spotted some green or white fly on just one flower bud and a couple of adjacent leaves while counting so hopefully, after sparying that, I have caught a potential infestation just in time. My only other chili plant growing attempt was last summer in a plastic greenhouse and that fell victim to a massive infestation of greenfly - after a few initial fruit, it produced nothing else.

Outkast_IRE

Second Captain wrote: »

Hi,
I have a question for the chili gurus. I bought a 'Pick-a-Hot-Pep' chili plant in April. It was about 10" tall and had a decent crop of about 15 green and red fruit on it already but only one or two flower buds. Transferred it to a 9" pot on a window sill. The peppers originally on it were all harvested over the first month and there has been one or two more produced each week which is a production rate that suites me fine. The plant itself has not gotten much taller but has produced lots of small leaves in clusters around the ends of the main branches.

Now, I think it enjoyed the recent sunny weather because now there is suddenly about 100 flower buds on it (yes, I counted). To this novice, it seems an unfeasibly large number of potential fruit for such a small plant to produce and just physically support at the same time. Should I remove a proportion of them or just count myself lucky?

I also spotted some green or white fly on just one flower bud and a couple of adjacent leaves while counting so hopefully, after sparying that, I have caught a potential infestation just in time. My only other chili plant growing attempt was last summer in a plastic greenhouse and that fell victim to a massive infestation of greenfly - after a few initial fruit, it produced nothing else.

Good job catching the greenfly, I caught a few of the buggers on my pararie fire plants, but going through it leaf by leaf I seem to of stopped it by crushing them one by one.

Personally I wouldn't bother removing any of the flower buds, I would pollinate them all and you will probably find that some of them will naturally drop off. The plant isn't going to kill itself to support more than it can, it will reach a level its comfortable with and drop any flowers it doesn't want to support.

What I would keep an eye on is the weight of the plant with so many fruits, you may want to put in a support cane to help it.

I would also recommend getting a good chilli plant food such as Chilli Focus.
http://www.southdevonchillifarm.co.uk/shop/chill-focus-plant-food.html

Best of luck

Second Captain

Thanks. I'll just keep an eye on it so. I suppose I am concerned at getting a large crop of punny fruit but we'll just see how it plays out. The plant came with a couple of sturdy canes in place so the centre is well supported. I might have a to put a crutch of sorts under a couple of the lateral branches if all the flower buds on the ends of them bear fruit. It would be a nice problem to have! I'll keep an eye out for that feed. I've given it a weekly dose of general purpose plant food but something more specialist is well worth a couple of quid.

Outkast_IRE

Second Captain wrote: »

Thanks. I'll just keep an eye on it so. I suppose I am concerned at getting a large crop of punny fruit but we'll just see how it plays out. The plant came with a couple of sturdy canes in place so the centre is well supported. I might have a to put a crutch of sorts under a couple of the lateral branches if all the flower buds on the ends of them bear fruit. It would be a nice problem to have! I'll keep an eye out for that feed. I've given it a weekly dose of general purpose plant food but something more specialist is well worth a couple of quid.

1 litre of the chilli focus would do you for 1 plant for years, I have about 20 plants and would get a year out of my current 1 litre bottle.

Don't worry too much about supporting lateral branches the plant should bulk up those branches in response to the increasing weight.

Technophobe

Yep, I discovered greenfly on some of mine yesterday too..:(

Outkast_IRE

Technophobe wrote: »

Yep, I discovered greenfly on some of mine yesterday too..:(

they are a bollox , im doing regular checks on my plants and catching the odd one, for some reason they are attracted to the Prarie Fire Variety, I have half a dozen plant varieities and the prarie fire ones are the only ones I found a good couple on.

Technophobe

I gave all of mine a good spraying with soapy water last night...hopefully will help...

tara m

Hello Chilli Fans!

Cut a long story short - I am a gardener, trained at Kew in London and I'm in the process of setting up a chilli farm here in Limerick, near Newcastle West. Would this be somewhere you would visit? We will plan to be open for next spring, and hope to grow the largest variety of chillies in Ireland. What else would you like to see at a Chilli Farm - some talks and courses? A chilli dedicated shop? Any feedback greatly appreciated, and free tickets for the first weekend, Promise!

Thanks for your input - Tara

Outkast_IRE

tara m wrote: »

Hello Chilli Fans!

Cut a long story short - I am a gardener, trained at Kew in London and I'm in the process of setting up a chilli farm here in Limerick, near Newcastle West. Would this be somewhere you would visit? We will plan to be open for next spring, and hope to grow the largest variety of chillies in Ireland. What else would you like to see at a Chilli Farm - some talks and courses? A chilli dedicated shop? Any feedback greatly appreciated, and free tickets for the first weekend, Promise!

Thanks for your input - Tara

To be fair, unless your offering something really special I don't think I would specifically travel to limerick just for plants, do you expect people to pay to visit a chilli farm ? its just when you mentioned tickets it has me wondering ? Surely your business model will revolve around
A. Selling Chillis to market.
B. Selling Seedling plants, or mature plants.
C. Perhaps selling your own seeds if your confident they aren't hybrids.
D. Sales of related equipment.

Im from cork so its only about 1hr 15mins away.

What I would consider visiting for is if some of the chilli growing equipment was available at competitive prices.

I can say for example in Cork city the only place I have found that stocks John Innes Compost is B&Q and they only stock No1 and No3 mixes.
Perlite and Vermiculite also B&Q is the only place I have found it.

Therefore I am forced to buy these simple products in B&Q.

Products like Chilligrow, I must order online from the UK http://www.greenhousesensation.co.uk/planters/chilligrow.html

or for plant food Chilli focus i must order online from UK http://www.southdevonchillifarm.co.uk/shop/chill-focus-plant-food.html

Also things like quality heated propagators etc can be awkward to fine.

I wish you all the best with your endeavour, as I can tell you from experience the range of chillis stocked in supermarkets here is dire, they are mostly imported from Kenya etc and aren't in the best condition by the time they arrive.

Im growing about 6 types of chillis this year myself, and all are coming along successfully.

Technophobe

+1 to what Outcast says really.....You defo need to sell product like Chilli Focus, good seedling compost etc etc and similar at a competitive price...

I would visit if there was enough to do to justify the trip....
Plenty of unuusual plants, chilli colours etc....
You could call it the Pepper Farm and not limit yourself to chillis...possibly consider sweet/bell peppers as well to catch the non spicy people element

Another possible future consideration would be to sell the likes of home made/artisan type chilli mayo, piri-piri marinades and sauces...People seem to be into that stuff

best of luck

ledgebag1

tara m wrote: »

Hello Chilli Fans!

Cut a long story short - I am a gardener, trained at Kew in London and I'm in the process of setting up a chilli farm here in Limerick, near Newcastle West. Would this be somewhere you would visit? We will plan to be open for next spring, and hope to grow the largest variety of chillies in Ireland. What else would you like to see at a Chilli Farm - some talks and courses? A chilli dedicated shop? Any feedback greatly appreciated, and free tickets for the first weekend, Promise!

Thanks for your input - Tara

Hi Tara
I think it's a brilliant idea and I would visit for sure. Talks and courses on sourcing growing and maintenance would be brilliant for me personally

Keep me posted please

Heroditas

This period of hot weather is coming at just the right time for my chillies. I have a glasshouse heaving with green cayenne peppers waiting to ripen and the jump in temperature should help that.
I have a good few jalapeños and my habanero fruit have absolutely exploded this week. The nagas are even beginning to show signs of fruits.
Even my sick scotch bonnet plant that I put outdoors away from the rest of them is coming on in leaps and bounds.

The occasional watering and plenty of heat will do wonders for them.

ledgebag1

I don't know where you live but apparently there is a bit of a heat wave / good weather in the way in ireland so that puppy is going in the sun for a few days a bit of air/ heat and the sound of beer flowing should be the right tonic. Does the habanero grow just as well as the cayenne and jalapeño plants?

Heroditas

ledgebag1 wrote: »

I don't know where you live but apparently there is a bit of a heat wave / good weather in the way in ireland so that puppy is going in the sun for a few days a bit of air/ heat and the sound of beer flowing should be the right tonic. Does the habanero grow just as well as the cayenne and jalapeño plants?

The hotter the chilli, the hotter the weather that is needed to grow them. The likes of jalapeños are dead easy even in Ireland but the likes of a Habanero needs loads of sunshine and heat to really crank up the heat.

ledgebag1

Heroditas wrote: »

The hotter the chilli, the hotter the weather that is needed to grow them. The likes of jalapeños are dead easy even in Ireland but the likes of a Habanero needs loads of sunshine and heat to really crank up the heat.

Okay good to know it was hotter than hell today so I am hoping the jalapeños will be leaping with spice. I have a porch in the house that's like an oven so I might try the habaneros in there

talkabout

Would anyone be able to identify this plant, suppose to be a Cayenne but looks bit like Apache to this untrained eye?

Heroditas

Most definitely not a cayenne!

Outkast_IRE

talkabout wrote: »

Would anyone be able to identify this plant, suppose to be a Cayenne but looks bit like Apache to this untrained eye?

I would expect the typical cayenne to produce longer slimmer fruits.
Where did you get the plant or seed ? if taken from a fruit you could easily have a hybrid plant.

talkabout

I got that plant from South Devon Chilli Farm in April. I grew Cayenne's last year so knew it didn't look right. I'll let it grow away and see how it gets on.