2019 Chilli Growing thread

[Karl]

Sowed my habanero seeds in late March, it took them a week and a bit to break through the soil, then put them in seedling trays, and have been carefully raising them since.

They're 3 months old now, and still only approx. 6 inches tall. I have tonnes of leaves on them, but no flowers yet. I think I stunted their growth slightly perhaps by repotting from seedling tray to a small pot, then a small pot to a larger one. I had 17 chilli plants, so space was at a premium and had to give some away to friends.

 

[DarrenM343]

Yeh i started late this year, end of march, as i was not growing any super hots that need along season, i did over winter a scotch bonnet and fatalli thou, pods on both.

Did you do anything to them to overwinter? Watched a few videos in preparation for trying it later this year and seen one trim all the branches right back, removed all leaves and repotted into a smaller pot too which all seemed a bit drastic.

Sowed my habanero seeds in late March, it took them a week and a bit to break through the soil, then put them in seedling trays, and have been carefully raising them since.

They're 3 months old now, and still only approx. 6 inches tall. I have tonnes of leaves on them, but no flowers yet. I think I stunted their growth slightly perhaps by repotting from seedling tray to a small pot, then a small pot to a larger one. I had 17 chilli plants, so space was at a premium and had to give some away to friends.

Most of mine in 10" pots are about roughly 34 inches tall from top of pot to top of highest branch. I gave two mine to a colleague when they were all in 9.5cm pots. She left them in the 9.5cm round pots for a lot longer than I did (another month+) and the pot size she's using now isn't as large and hers are probably <10 inches tall. Still has enough chillies on them tho.
I went from coir plug to 9cm pots to 6" and then to 10". While learning I potted-on a little early I think as the soil fell away when moving to the 6" pots . Probably better to pot-on too soon I suppose than to restrict growth.

 

[Daytrader]

Did you do anything to them to overwinter? Watched a few videos in preparation for trying it later this year and seen one trim all the branches right back, removed all leaves and repotted into a smaller pot too which all seemed a bit drastic..

I cut mine back drastically as you can see from photos, but just kept in same pots, as i feed them every watering, so did not even change the compost, most people cut back to like 6"/8", chillis do much better 2nd and 3rd year.

Fatalli last year plant, fatalli and bonnet cut back and now Fatalli and bonnet.

 

[Daytrader]

Sowed my habanero seeds in late March, it took them a week and a bit to break through the soil, then put them in seedling trays, and have been carefully raising them since.

They're 3 months old now, and still only approx. 6 inches tall. I have tonnes of leaves on them, but no flowers yet. I think I stunted their growth slightly perhaps by repotting from seedling tray to a small pot, then a small pot to a larger one. I had 17 chilli plants, so space was at a premium and had to give some away to friends.

Mate super hots and hots take time to grow, below is almost same time as last year for me, and at end of growing season, dont give up yet, is your plant like mine was last year, you got a photo maybe to compare, late march is a bit late thou for hots, but still should be ok if good summer, feb a good time.

 

[dl8860]

My cayennes are fruiting like mad but I'll be please most if I get some decent chilis off my habaneros, I sowed in mid feb indoors and just the first sign of fruit a couple of days ago.

 

[Armageus]

I've got one large cayenne fruit, loads of patio sizzle and just beginning to get some Harbenaro fruits.

Nothing on my Bird's eyes yet though.

On the other hand, I've more cucumber fruit growing than I'll be able to cope with, and will no doubt be overwhelmed with tomatoes soon, and if the birds stopped nicking them, i'd have a decent crop of Strawberries

 

[Semple]

Just glued my Fresno unopened flower, so i get pure seeds from pod, first year i try it.
PVA glue, chosen flower bud, 1st dip, then 2nd dip

Is that so you can harvest seeds for growing next year? Never heard of that before, and will be quite interested how well it works for some of those exotic peppers that would be nice to grow each year.

Sowed on the 13th Dec. Was surprised the reapers were the first to ripen, even if it's just the intermediate colour. The red ones seem to quickly turn red once they start, within two days. Slowest are the bonnets.
Might overwinter a couple this year.

Ah that would explain why yours are miles ahead, i think most of us on here sowed around March time, so we're a good couple of months behind.

Sowed my habanero seeds in late March, it took them a week and a bit to break through the soil, then put them in seedling trays, and have been carefully raising them since.

They're 3 months old now, and still only approx. 6 inches tall. I have tonnes of leaves on them, but no flowers yet. I think I stunted their growth slightly perhaps by repotting from seedling tray to a small pot, then a small pot to a larger one. I had 17 chilli plants, so space was at a premium and had to give some away to friends.

I know the feeling. My first year growing chilli's from seeds, and i figured i'd end up losing a load of them so i planted around 60 seeds. I currently have 43 now growing, with some taking up a huge amount of space.

My cayennes are fruiting like mad but I'll be please most if I get some decent chilis off my habaneros, I sowed in mid feb indoors and just the first sign of fruit a couple of days ago.

My cayennes don't even seem to be flowering yet , i think i've got one plant that i've seen a flower on. The rest have buds growing, but seem to be taking forever to flower. I'm hoping some of the warm/hot weather this week will give them a boost.

 

[Daytrader]

Is that so you can harvest seeds for growing next year? Never heard of that before, and will be quite interested how well it works for some of those exotic peppers that would be nice to grow each year..

Yes, and i know there be true to plant, you can just take seeds from any chilli without doing what i do, but high chance they wont be true to plant, and will have got crossed, especially if your growing a lot of different chillis, most people just use little wedding party bags, and tie around a flower bud before it opens, but chance that pollen in wind will cross.

 

[arknor]

all my pepper plants leaves were hanging proper vertical by the end of yesterday lol

had them in the bedroom window getting sun from like 06:00-09:00, them move them to the balcony window in the living room from 09:00-16:00, then back in the bedroom window where the sun is shining again until it disappears below the rooftops about 18:30

I suspect they maybe just wanted darkness because the leaves weren't limp and wilted from the heat and they didn't start doing it until about 5pm

 

[randomshenans]

Really regretting not cutting back my over wintered plants... they seem OK, but think they won't do much this year because of it. Should I cut back now or too late? They're the same size as last year... but think they'll just try and grow and not flower. No idea though?

I've been germinating a bunch of seeds. I don't think they're too late as it remains warm here into Oct normally.

 

[Karl]

Mate super hots and hots take time to grow, below is almost same time as last year for me, and at end of growing season, dont give up yet, is your plant like mine was last year, you got a photo maybe to compare, late march is a bit late thou for hots, but still should be ok if good summer, feb a good time

Thanks for the encouragement mate!

Here's what they look like right now.

 

[DarrenM343]

Quick tomato question as I'm sure some of you are growing them too. Plant is a dwarf, F1 variety (F1 summerlast to be exact). I believe it's a determinate. I've been removing the ripe/nearly ripe tomatoes each from their knuckle join so a little bit of stem from the truss comes with the fruit removed. When the last one tomato has been removed from a truss should I remove the leftover truss? I assume any new tomatoes will grow from a new truss elsewhere on the plant?
Couldn't find the answer via a search so maybe a dumb question

 

[Daytrader]

Thanks for the encouragement mate!

Here's what they look like right now.

There perfect, if not even at a better stage than mine was last year, dont forget we got until October, i was picking in November even.

 

[Daytrader]

Quick tomato question as I'm sure some of you are growing them too. Plant is a dwarf, F1 variety (F1 summerlast to be exact). I believe it's a determinate. I've been removing the ripe/nearly ripe tomatoes each from their knuckle join so a little bit of stem from the truss comes with the fruit removed. When the last one tomato has been removed from a truss should I remove the leftover truss? I assume any new tomatoes will grow from a new truss elsewhere on the plant?
Couldn't find the answer via a search so maybe a dumb question

Once all tomatos are picked from a truss, cut empty truss off, and yes new tomatoes grow from new trusses.

 

[arknor]

one of my tomato plants is like 1.5meters high or so and had quite a few trusses, counted 25 tomatoes in all on it with not all the trusses filled yet.
my only other tomato plant I decided to top for some reason and then burried the Y part underground so it has 2 stems is almost the same size but it only has 3 truss starting to appear and nowhere near flowering yet...

Guess it's better to let them grow natural and just pick the shoots lol....

the middle one had really bad edema from over watering so I just chopped all the leaves effected by edema , it's supposed to be fine to leave them but they look really ugly almost like they are covered in bugs, its little salt crystals building up in the leaves or something. gives them little bumpy spots all over.

my smallest one was my experiment since it's so stunted and messed up anyway, I chopped it back to almost nothing for the luls a few weeks back.
managed to get it to grow a triple top lol



still no buds that tried to flower yet but the 2 biggest have some pretty big looking buds that didn't fall off yet so they must be really close.

the largest one looks pretty good from directly above quite bushed out with a large canopy actually seems to be trying to grow buds more than anything now, the middle one seems to be doing the same even if it looks a bit bare of leaves...

the smallest one was topped twice already but it hasn't started to branch out :S I thought it would be forced to bush but it's really not even trying to grow branches it does seem pretty compact at least..

tempted to kill my second tomato plant so I can put my biggest pepper plant in a bigger pot.... it's sure limited by the container size right now I think it's like 5-6 litres of compost only

edit:
from above


ya ya I should clean that step and probably the window and no I'm not wearing those boots, just left them there to hold the curtain back from touching the plants

 

[DarrenM343]

Once all tomatos are picked from a truss, cut empty truss off, and yes new tomatoes grow from new trusses.

Thanks.

Tested a few of the orange reaper things now and must admit I'm not overly found of them. I say reaper things as many don't look like true reapers. They're all about heat only so better as the heat element in sauces or dishes with lots of other flavours/aromas I think. Just sniffing one when sliced and tasting makes me think of battery acid . That's probably why they say one can add spice to 100's of dishes. I used half of a small one for soup (3 or four servings), and it was way too hot for me. Luckily I had ingredients for another batch of soup so I cooked that up and diluted the first batch which has made it more tolerable. I think an 8th of a small one is enough avoid the kind of pungent aroma, maybe with a really mild but nicer tasting chilli too.

Not tried a bonnet yet but the red finger chillies are really nice - already tried a few of those now.

 

[Semple]

My biggest chilli plant is flowering lots, i reckon has a good 50 or so flowers on it now. Will be interesting to see how quickly the drop off/die and then grow a chilli.

On a side note, is anyone growing potatoes / has grown potatoes? I was growing some in big pot, started around early march. I did the "earthing up" until it reached the top of the pot, and the shoots are now a good meter tall out of the soil. I only had 2 flower last week, although the lots of heavy rain we've had recently seems to have knocked them off. Also being very top-heavy, the rain is causing the stems to buckle/bend. I'm not entirely sure when they'll be ready to harvest? From what i've read they need to flower first, but they've not really flowered in the last 6 weeks, and they're no longer growing more in height.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

My biggest chilli plant is flowering lots, i reckon has a good 50 or so flowers on it now. Will be interesting to see how quickly the drop off/die and then grow a chilli.

On a side note, is anyone growing potatoes / has grown potatoes? I was growing some in big pot, started around early march. I did the "earthing up" until it reached the top of the pot, and the shoots are now a good meter tall out of the soil. I only had 2 flower last week, although the lots of heavy rain we've had recently seems to have knocked them off. Also being very top-heavy, the rain is causing the stems to buckle/bend. I'm not entirely sure when they'll be ready to harvest? From what i've read they need to flower first, but they've not really flowered in the last 6 weeks, and they're no longer growing more in height.

Dont stress about the flowers much on potatoes they arent actually really doing anything as pots are tubers

If your growing in a pot just dig down carefully to see whats happening, thats the main advantage of a pot

I tend to let the tops die off, they will eventually. Depends if you want them max size or smaller, there really is no unripe part for them, you can pick them as soon or as late as you want within reason

Some I know actually part harvest and sometimes the plant will trigger to grow more but this seems a little pot luck

 

[Daytrader]

First two chilli pods of the year for me, having them in my home made chilli tonight, Scotch bonnet.

 

[arknor]

still not had a bud flower yet, had a few drop off in the last day.

I think my plants got too much nitrogen in the compost and I probably should never have given them extra feed for the veg state

I doubt it's lack of magnesium because I have a plant food that's specifically secondary/micro nutrients it's NPK is something like 0.1/0.1/0.1.