chillies

gandalf

Going well here at the moment. I have over 30 plants. Very proud I have managed to get 8 Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Chillis) growing, if I get any fruits it will make an interesting curry at least. I have around 5 padrons. The most impressive are the cherry bombs they are now growing very well indeed. Very poor return from the other plants I think I have two Ring of Fires and two Hungarian Hot Wax's.

Tefral

If I do manage to get plenty of chillis from my Ed's Carolina Reapers does anyone want some of the seeds? I can keep em when i am cutting the chillis up.

Technophobe

syklops wrote: »

This turned into more like a blog post than a comment.. Sorry for the wall of text. At least its punctuated.


I then got the notion to grow some bonsai trees. I'd always been fascinated with Bonsai trees and I don't need to do too much research. All I needed was some peat compost, some seeds and some pots. I also had a desire to grow a bonsai chilli tree, which produced fruit because I use chillis in everything and I love the idea of going to get them not from Tesco but from my chilli tree.

So with almost zero knowledge I started germinating seeds. I started with a mixture of orange, lemon and chilli seeds and the chillis are the only ones which sprouted thus far. I germinated them in moist kitchen paper in ziplock bags in the airing cupboard. Some took a week, some sprouted in 3-4 days.

I now have approximately 20 plants. Some still in the egg box, some in pots. They are just shoots with 3 to 4 leaves each, so a long way to go, but its surprising how quickly they grow. I am now obsessed with my collection of plants and love getting home from work so I can look at how they are doing.

Stuff I've learnt along the way:

- Cinnamon is a natural anti-fungal agent. A few of my plants were getting this whiteish mould on the soil, possibly due to me over watering them. Sprinkling cinnamon over the top of the soil kills the mould and adds a pretty contrast for the plant.

- Germination is recommended but not required, not with chilis anyway. I planted 18 seeds in another eggbox nursery, put it in the airing cupboard and 5 days later I had about 11 plants, so high they were hitting the top of the eggbox. Chillis, at least, seem to be very easy to grow. I've had zero luck with lemon, orange and Kumquat germinating, but the chillis are flying - almost to the point that Im running out of space. I have a crop of Jalapenos germinating at the minute. I'll report back with the results.

- Garden centres are expensive! This is why we had no money when I was growing up. It wasnt my dad spending it on coke and hookers it was him going mad in Atlantic Care and Woodies. I went into Woodies on Sunday, and all I bought was a watering bottle, some general purpose fertiliser, and 20 pots and drip trays. 45 euros. Now this is the only money Ive spent on my new hobby, as I was given peat compost, but it was still a surprise.

Stuff Im thinking about.

Going on holiday for a week the end of June. As I said Im a technical guy, and Im thinking of building an automated watering system using a raspberry Pi and an arduino. Then my ideas went into overdrive and I considered buying moisture sensors for each plant so they only get watered when they "need it", and a webcam, so I can log in remotely and look at them, as well as read out the moisture to a webpage. Then I thought if I do that I should be able to water them manually if I feel fit, and now we are talking a lot of testing and quite a few lines of code to write and I am getting away from the relaxing impact my chili farm was having on me.
tl;dr version of the above paragraph, what do other people do when they go on holiday?

Next thing I plant to grow are christmas trees but miniatures. A bonsai Christmas tree would be a nice decoration for a desk or a coffee table and any bonsai tree is a nice gift.

I'll check this thread regularly now.

Ask someone to water them for you when you are on holidays. 2 good waterings would be enough in a week....

Technophobe

cronin_j wrote: »

If I do manage to get plenty of chillis from my Ed's Carolina Reapers does anyone want some of the seeds? I can keep em when i am cutting the chillis up.

I would love some and could swap something....
Presumably you know you woudl have to grow them in isolation so that they are true seed?

Tefral

Technophobe wrote: »

I would love some and could swap something....
Presumably you know you woudl have to grow them in isolation so that they are true seed?

Oh yeah the reapers are grown on the kitchen windowsill and my red habeneros are in the sitting room

Technophobe

cronin_j wrote: »

Oh yeah the reapers are grown on the kitchen windowsill and my red habeneros are in the sitting room

all good so

I have a good few varieties growing but not sure what saving yet, but probably Purple Jalapeno anyways, maybe Red Hab and/or Ohnivec

captainshamroc

If anyone started late or wants to try chillies without growing from seed, B&Q have a lot of chillie plants in stock. They have both seedlings and plants a couple of months old.
They're handy as an easier option to see how you do. I'd recommend the Cayenne's. They're fairly easy to look after and you can get a decent crop followed by addiction and an urge to fill the house with chillies next year.

Sgt Pepper 64

captainshamroc wrote: »

If anyone started late or wants to try chillies without growing from seed, B&Q have a lot of chillie plants in stock. They have both seedlings and plants a couple of months old.
They're handy as an easier option to see how you do. I'd recommend the Cayenne's. They're fairly easy to look after and you can get a decent crop followed by addiction and an urge to fill the house with chillies next year.

Also Homebase

Shemale

I have a load of Jalapeno seeds, I think I have a good few Habanero and Scotch Bonnets too, will post for free if anyone is interested in them.

mcgovern

captainshamroc wrote: »

If anyone started late or wants to try chillies without growing from seed, B&Q have a lot of chillie plants in stock. They have both seedlings and plants a couple of months old.
They're handy as an easier option to see how you do. I'd recommend the Cayenne's. They're fairly easy to look after and you can get a decent crop followed by addiction and an urge to fill the house with chillies next year.

I got worried mine weren't growing fast enough, so picked up a pack from B&Q, one Cayenne, one Jalapeno and one Fresno, for about €4.30.
They aren't huge, but further on than any of the ones I've grown from seed.

Gloomtastic!

Down to three Cayennes and one Habenero. All transplanted this morning into their forever homes, the Habenero is meant to grow the biggest so gets the biggest pot.

All enjoying their first taste of outside life today.

Shemale

Went to B&Q on Friday and picked up two Jalapenos and one Bhut Jolokia, great shout guys.

All are a good size and much bigger than my seeds, transplanted the plants into 12 inch pots today and serious heat in the greenhouse today .

Planted up two Scotch Bonnets and two Habaneros and seven Jalapenos to their second pots today.

Gloomtastic!

Plants have gone ballistic since transpotting them. However, my Habenero has developed a brownish hue on the older leaves.

Something to worry about?

captainshamroc

As long as the new leaves are green and healthy I wouldn't worry too much. Chillies are so fickle and yet hardy and recover from just about anything. They're either flying or dying, no inbetween.
My favourite plant from last year looked to be at deaths door a few days ago. Think I over fertilised. The tip and centre vein of the leaves are brown and its spreading. New leaves are shriveling up and getting brown splotches as well. Saw a couple of new leaves today that weren't spotty so figure if I just give it water and outdoors it will be fine by next week.

Technophobe

When ye both say outdoors, are you referring to just leaving them outside or do u mean in a greenhouse or similar ?

captainshamroc

Fully outdoors the last week or so but if it gets cool at night I have one of those plastic mini green houses that I can put them in. At this stage i think they'd be hardy enough to survive the rest of the summer outdoors but still keeping an eye on temperatures.

Tefral

Some pics of my Reapers growing

syklops

Still no flowers.

iainBB

Sweet peppers getting flowers now

iainBB

And my over winter chilli doing great. But no flowers as of yet. But this variety is slow to flower.

mcgovern

2 of the 3 I bought from B&Q have flowers now, and they are quite tall.



Some of the ones I grew from seed might get big enough to fruit




but the rest are still tiny

Gloomtastic!

No flowers yet but plants flourishing.....

Tefral

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

No flowers yet but plants flourishing.....

man you must be using a serious amount of Fertilizer! Thats alot of green!

Gloomtastic!

cronin_j wrote: »

man you must be using a serious amount of Fertilizer! Thats alot of green!

My secret, apart from planting in large pots, water from the fish tank - full of nitrogen (or something).

Technophobe

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

cronin_j wrote: »

man you must be using a serious amount of Fertilizer! Thats alot of green!

My secret, apart from planting in large pots, water from the fish tank - full of nitrogen (or something).

You need to stop the nitrogen fertilizer soon though..they should be flowering by now...

Springwell

I've Jalpenos and Habaneros and "Prairie Fire" flowering away...but my plants grown from seed are only 18" tall but have easily 20+ flowers each. Any ideas why they stayed so small and bushy??

Outkast_IRE

Springwell wrote: »

I've Jalpenos and Habaneros and "Prairie Fire" flowering away...but my plants grown from seed are only 18" tall but have easily 20+ flowers each. Any ideas why they stayed so small and bushy??

Different varieties will grow different ways. From my experience over the last few years i am not surprised the Habeneros and prarie fire stayed small and bushy, but usually the Jalapenos i have grown were quite tall.

I wouldnt worry once you are happy the plants are healthy and the pots they are in are big enough. To be honest small and bushy with a big yield is preferrable anyways as the plants can be harder to manage when they get to 6ft tall or more like some of mine have in the past

Sgt Pepper 64

Technophobe wrote: »

You need to stop the nitrogen fertilizer soon though..they should be flowering by now...

Tottaly agree
While heat may be a contributing factor to a lack of fruit set, nutrition is also a key player. Fertilizers with a high nitrogen content result in lush, green foliage but no fruit. You may want to do a soil test to see exactly what needs to be added. Peppers need more phosphorus and potassium to set fruit. They don’t need a lot of food, 1 teaspoon of 5-10-10 at planting time and an additional teaspoon just at bloom time.

Read more at Gardening Know How: No Flowers Or Fruit On Peppers – Reasons For Pepper Plants Not Producing http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/pepper/no-flowers-or-fruit-on-peppers.htm

Gloomtastic!

I've switched over to adding Tomato Feed to fresh water so hopefully will see some flowers in the few weeks.

goose06

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

I've switched over to adding Tomato Feed to fresh water so hopefully will see some flowers in the few weeks.

Just don't water them too much let them dry out a bit and let the leaves wilt a small bit to encourage the plant to produce flowers by thinking it's dieing.