2019 Chilli Growing thread

Soldato
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First two chilli pods of the year for me, having them in my home made chilli tonight, Scotch bonnet.
20200702-165406.jpg
Wow they're a fantastic colour!
 
Associate
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Should I wait for these chillies to turn red before picking them?
I can’t remember what variety they are.

vTqRlw5l.jpg

They come off without much force atm.
 
Soldato
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Should I wait for these chillies to turn red before picking them?
I can’t remember what variety they are.

They come off without much force atm.
Try one. Can eat from green although some won't taste of much if not meant to be their ripe colour I think. Probably those are meant to change colour. It can take a while but once a few start turning the rest will soon after.
 
Soldato
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aphids have killed all of mine even with regular spraying

Inside or outside ones?

Interestingly i've noticed that the ones i keep in the greenhouse don't seem to have any aphids on them, yet the ones i have indoors have been infested with them - maybe something to do with the warmth?

I gave up with spraying them, i can definitely confirm from experience that this method does not work. I've resorted to once a day brushing/pulling the aphids off the plant.
 
Soldato
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aphids have killed all of mine even with regular spraying

Gutted for you mate. All that effort to have everything eaten by aphids is really ****.

Inside or outside ones?

Interestingly i've noticed that the ones i keep in the greenhouse don't seem to have any aphids on them, yet the ones i have indoors have been infested with them - maybe something to do with the warmth?

I gave up with spraying them, i can definitely confirm from experience that this method does not work. I've resorted to once a day brushing/pulling the aphids off the plant.

Mine have been kept in my tiny greenhouse and have no aphids. The one day I left them out on a wall to catch a bit more sun, i noticed a few under the leaves. Wiped them off and put them back in the greenhouse, none since.

I did find a ladybird in my garden as well, picked him up and put him on one of my chillis and he's been in there ever since - I wonder if he's hoovering up the strays :D
 
Soldato
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Gutted for you mate. All that effort to have everything eaten by aphids is really ****.



Mine have been kept in my tiny greenhouse and have no aphids. The one day I left them out on a wall to catch a bit more sun, i noticed a few under the leaves. Wiped them off and put them back in the greenhouse, none since.

I did find a ladybird in my garden as well, picked him up and put him on one of my chillis and he's been in there ever since - I wonder if he's hoovering up the strays :D

I wish the ladybird on my plant was hungry :(, he just wanders over the aphids as if he's too full to eat.
 
Caporegime
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Inside or outside ones?

Interestingly i've noticed that the ones i keep in the greenhouse don't seem to have any aphids on them, yet the ones i have indoors have been infested with them - maybe something to do with the warmth?

I gave up with spraying them, i can definitely confirm from experience that this method does not work. I've resorted to once a day brushing/pulling the aphids off the plant.

Inside and absolutely annihilation here.

Been spraying it several times a day and still got aphids. I think the issue is they wander off then come back so if you miss a few the cycle starts again. Whereas outdoors they will attack other plants. Indoors they only have these to come back to.

I had 9 plants all doing extremely well and were going to give me my biggest batch ever.

I've always had issues with aphids but this year seems to be worse than previous and fairy hasn't worked at all this year.
 
Soldato
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Might have mentioned this before but neem oil been recommended to me. Not had a problem with them myself so not had to try it.

Going to put some of mine outside soon - the reapers once I have grabbed the current batch from them (ie, too many!) . Anyone had problem with magpies eating their chillies or tomatoes? Only thing I'm a bit concerned about as they're quite active where I am due to living near woodland area.
 
Caporegime
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I still got no buds trying to flower lol.... my biggest plant dropped like 10 buds as well

maybe romano peppers the plants need to get much bigger than chilli ones or something since romano peppers are usually pretty big, I had almost no issues when I did cheyenne chillis a few years ago

my tomato plant already on the lowest truss 3 of the tomatoes are almost red and it's got like 35 cherry sized tomatoes on it already.
 
Soldato
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I found aphids absolutely thrived on the windowsill, with window open or closed. But once I put the plants outside, there's been no issues at all

Whitefly are the same have some citrus in pots that overwinter under glass but as soon as the weather warms up so the pests appear then they go outside, no more whitefly just have to deal with recent gales instead lol.
 
Caporegime
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Put my chillies in the greenhouse a few weeks earlier than last year and they're almost twice the size than last year now. Most of my plants have some fruit already and one Borg 9 is producing tangerine size fruit.

 
Associate
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Right chaps, first attempt at growing and I’m at a loss.
I was given some Serrano seeds and one germinated out of the three I planted.
Initially the plant drooped badly and I found the soil was far too wet. I repotted it and put new compost in and it perked up but the leaves have started wilting, they just curl up and die.
The plant is growing but the leaves consistently dry up and die.
I repotted it again yesterday and used John Inns no 2 (recommended for chillis) and I’ve put gravel on top to keep moisture in. The pot is on a south-facing sill so it gets lots of sun and I water it with tomorite (5ml in a litre bottle of water)
Any ideas what’s happening? Am I doing something majorly wrong or am I just unlucky?
Thoughts/suggestions are most welcome.
 
Caporegime
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2 of my 3 plants now have the same issue after having oedema from over watering.
my 3rd plant is thriving in the exact same compost, exact same watering regime almost.

pepper/chilli plants need only 1 inch of water per week according to google.

which means you can basically get a small container that your pot will sit inside.
fill the container with like an inch of water, let your plant pot suck it all up. (it doesnt matter if the surface of your compost is visually moist there's no roots in the surface layer anyway)

then try to hold out for a week.

my leaf roll only started happening since I started to water them less. I'm just assuming since the roots were used to being saturated the plant didn't get as large a root mass going as it should have and with the proper watering amount it's struggling to get enough water to the leaves in full sun until it's concentrated a bit on growing more roots.

maybe give them a bit of shade until you think they are fully recovered from over watering, you might wanna pull the plant from a pot and check how healthy its root mass is though.


not of mine have flowers yet, just bud drop but ironically the plant of mine with the worst oedema looks like it has some buds that are going to open up any day now rather than fall off :S


BTW you should let your water sit open for 24houts to get rid of any chlorine/fluoride, and if you have a water softener installed.
get water from somewhere else

Most plants cannot tolerate high amounts of salt. The sodium in softened water actually interferes with the water balance in the plants and can kill plants by “fooling” them into thinking they have taken up more water than they have. Softened water essentially causes the plants in your garden to die of thirst.22 Jun 2020
google seems to suggest there is saltess water softening systems though


EDIT:
just checked my one and only tomato plant and gave some of the ripe looking tomatoes a slight twist and 3 of them came off in my hand :D
definitely easier to grow them peppers.
 
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Soldato
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EDIT:
just checked my one and only tomato plant and gave some of the ripe looking tomatoes a slight twist and 3 of them came off in my hand :D
definitely easier to grow them peppers.

Absolutely without a doubt. I literally flood my tomato plants once a day with water and they're just thriving. No concerns about over-watering.

Which is strange because peppers and tomatoes aren't too dissimilar.

I can only echo what Arknor says about watering, i find it's better to water only a little, and do it twice if needed rather than giving huge amounts of water.

Another trick i've noticed, especially as the soil dries out without much water, which means when you go to water it, it just runs straight through the pot. So either have a container underneath to catch/retain the water, or use a spray bottle to moisten the surface soil so that it absorbs the water you pour on it.

I also only use rain water as opposed to tap water.
 
Soldato
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I've got 5 plants going great, 3 cayenne and 2 habaneros.

Of the cayennes, two of them have fruit that is quite shrivelled. It seems to be the fruit lower down the plant, do they dehydrate a bit as water gets directed further up the plant? I've let the plants get a bit too high I think (2ft at least) so maybe that's the reason? They look barely edible, just turning red now but they look more like dried chillies some of them! Will they still be ok to eat? Has made me think I might be under watering, maybe I'm under feeding though?
 
Soldato
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I've got 5 plants going great, 3 cayenne and 2 habaneros.

Of the cayennes, two of them have fruit that is quite shrivelled. It seems to be the fruit lower down the plant, do they dehydrate a bit as water gets directed further up the plant? I've let the plants get a bit too high I think (2ft at least) so maybe that's the reason? They look barely edible, just turning red now but they look more like dried chillies some of them! Will they still be ok to eat? Has made me think I might be under watering, maybe I'm under feeding though?

I hope not, i've got a cayenne that's at least 3.5 foot high. It's got a few flowers, but hasn't yet fruited.
 
Don
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I've got 5 plants going great, 3 cayenne and 2 habaneros.

Of the cayennes, two of them have fruit that is quite shrivelled. It seems to be the fruit lower down the plant, do they dehydrate a bit as water gets directed further up the plant? I've let the plants get a bit too high I think (2ft at least) so maybe that's the reason? They look barely edible, just turning red now but they look more like dried chillies some of them! Will they still be ok to eat? Has made me think I might be under watering, maybe I'm under feeding though?

I've got a couple of Cayenne plants and the fruits look a bit shrivelled - not sure if it is just normal? They've had similar amount of water to all my other plants which are fruiting fine.
 
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