2019 Chilli Growing thread

Semple said:
That's one hell of a haul!

I've only been picking off ones that I'd use, I figured it's too late in the season for it to now start fruiting more.

What are you planning to do with them all?
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Thanks, I've been slowly picking at mine over the last month as well to get the rest to ripen quicker. Last night should make the remaining peppers ripen as well but it is too late for any more fruit to be produced now.

Put them all in the freezer last night but the Reapers, Ghosts, Douglahs and Scorpions will all go in to hot sauce and food over the next year and the Borgs will probably be ground down and turned in to powder.
 
What do you all do with old compost? My chills & toms been growing in a mixture of compost of varying types inc John Innes no 2, some Westland stuff from homebase and some other seedling mix I had to use during lockdown for established plants. Never grown anything before but does this all need chucking at end of season? I pulled one tomatoe plant from its pot which was a bit of a growing disaster due to breakages, bends (lesson learned for next year) and a lot of the roots were left behind in the old compost. Kind of seems a shame to now have to chuck it, somehow, which itself is going to be a pita.
 
DarrenM343 said:
What do you all do with old compost? My chills & toms been growing in a mixture of compost of varying types inc John Innes no 2, some Westland stuff from homebase and some other seedling mix I had to use during lockdown for established plants. Never grown anything before but does this all need chucking at end of season? I pulled one tomatoe plant from its pot which was a bit of a growing disaster due to breakages, bends (lesson learned for next year) and a lot of the roots were left behind in the old compost. Kind of seems a shame to now have to chuck it, somehow, which itself is going to be a pita.
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I reuse mine, do you throw your garden soil out every year?

It's just a growing medium with very little nutrients inside it, break it up and pull any big roots out and bin them.

if you grew tomatoes in compost and then grow tomatoes in it again next year though any disease from your previous tomato plant could be still inside the compost like tomato blight, so for some things it's worth chucking it on your garden instead to improve the soil.

but most plants you can just reuse the compost fine as long as you break it all up to be fluffy again.

If you want to be overkill you could sterilise the compost yourself with boiling water in a pan, some people do that to kill any insect eggs and disease.

probably stinks though
 
Random question.

I cut my plants back to 6 inches for overwintering as they were getting a bit too big for the location they were in and they also weren't doing very well anyway.

But it's still a bit warm and they are still growing/sprouting stalks and leaves from the main stem.

Once winter and cold does hit, should I pluck those new sprouts away and just leave stem?
Or should I just leave it alone?
 
Some of these are over 14" long.
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Nice. I think I might standardise my peppers next year and just pick one type but different colours, orange and yellow peppers always look so good.

I ran the gauntlet of chopping Habanero's without gloves this evening, no burn yet but plenty of time. Looking forward to the pepper grind tomorrow :cool:



Edit: My house smells like Habanero this morning :o
 
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Not sure they're considered high tech but it's a food dehydrator from Amazon.

Temperature here's hit 8c for the last few nights but my greenhouse keeps my plants a few degrees warmer so I'll keep them out until the end of October, unless it gets dramatically colder.
 
DarrenM343 said:
What do you all do with old compost? My chills & toms been growing in a mixture of compost of varying types inc John Innes no 2, some Westland stuff from homebase and some other seedling mix I had to use during lockdown for established plants. Never grown anything before but does this all need chucking at end of season? I pulled one tomatoe plant from its pot which was a bit of a growing disaster due to breakages, bends (lesson learned for next year) and a lot of the roots were left behind in the old compost. Kind of seems a shame to now have to chuck it, somehow, which itself is going to be a pita.
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I think it depends on how you use it. If you add a lot of nutrients back to the soil when you plant new seeds, then it'll be fine. But if not, then they'll probably struggle to grow. A lot of the decent compost is packed with nutrients to give seedlings a real kickstart. Seeing as it isn't expensive, i will just chuck the old compost onto my flower beds at the end of the season and buy new bags next year.

rhysduck said:
@Pigeon_Killer Is that some kind of high tech drying device?

have had to bring my plants inside last night as it's dropping to 3-5c the next few nights :( Poor show this year.
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Yeah it's not been the best has it. Even though we've got a south facing garden and on some of the sunny days it's been very hot. A good proportion of summer was wet and windy.

I'm hoping to overwinter a few of my chillies this year so that they get a bit of a headstart for next year.
 
Quick question for he chili growers here.

My daughter's chili (don't know the variety, sorry), has been picked and we are looking to overwinter it inside in the kitchen as we don't have any greenhouse, etc.

When should we cut it back and re pot it? It is a little leggy as it survived form the previous year but without any real care or attention.

Thanks in adavance.
 
Only did a tray at a time so kept bits and fumes to a minimum. I did however forget to wash my hands before going to the toilet and now the old chap is distressed :(

Edit: Just done my washing up for the day and now my hands are on fire FFS :o

Edit: And now my ear is too :mad:
 
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I think I'm going to have to get a grow lamp and grow my chilies indoors for the winter. I don't want to lose them and at the same time, I don't think they're mature enough to overwinter!
 
I was seeing fungus gnats for 1-2 weeks, not many just 1 or 2 every few days attracted yo my c02 output, sprinkled a small layer of diatomaceous earth on the top of all my plant pots, most of it seems to have sunk into the top layer of the compost when Ive watered but, I haven't seen any fungus gnats in over a week so I can only assume the DE is shredding their larvae
 
I harvested a load of my chillies yesterday. Got quite a few green ones that I'll just ripen on the windowsill. That's left me with about 12 plants left, where some have got small chillies still growing.

Will keep an eye on the weather for the next few weeks to make sure we don't get any early frosts and then I'll look to overwinter a few.
 
Weather's been noticeably colder over the last two weeks but my greenhouse has stayed above 10c at night so I'm hoping to keep them going for another month.



If anyone's interested in a productive super hot for next year, the Borg 9 have been ridiculous. They're about as hot as a Ghost and I'm averaging over 60 per plant so far. The third plant along in this picture is basically a Borg umbrella :D

 
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