The 2010 Chilli growing thread - it's scorching!

Just got back from a week away, having got the other half's mother to water, and just completed the first main harvest of the season.







From the early ones I'd tried, they do have some fairly serious heat, meaning they should be perfect for the chilli oil I want to make. Now I just have to dry them all out - some sun would be useful!
 
Made my first bath of sweet chilli and hot chilli sauces yesterday :)

Sweet is admittedly green because none of the chillis have ripened properly, however I had just ran out and couldn't stop myself :D

It's lovely, pics to follow when I find the camera!
 
They're Ring of Fire. I've got one plant growing Cherry Bombs which are a fantastic taste, but I'm only getting one or two a week off that one. I'm just deciding which plants to grow for next year. This year I planted in October, and germinated indoors (in the office actually), resulting in really hardy and very early mature plants for harvest. I'm going to repeat again.
 
The_Abyss said:
They're Ring of Fire. I've got one plant growing Cherry Bombs which are a fantastic taste, but I'm only getting one or two a week off that one. I'm just deciding which plants to grow for next year. This year I planted in October, and germinated indoors (in the office actually), resulting in really hardy and very early mature plants for harvest. I'm going to repeat again.
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I think I'll do the same, did you use growlights or anything to keep the small plants alive over the winter?

I have a nice crop of tomatoes, probably over 100, but they're all still green, with no signs of changing. If they were at the stage they are now when we had a few weeks of sun in May? it would have been great.

I think if I plant in Nov then they should be mature and cropping by May. Its just going to be hard to keep them alive in my house over winter, I might invest in a decent 250watt growlight and reflector.
 
Being honest, we (we germinated loads in the office as a group) didn't put a huge amount of effort into it. We bought 3 covered seed trays, each with something like 36 peat plugs, and put 3 or 4 seeds into each. When more than one germinated, the smallest were pulled out. We kept them on the window sill, and then when they had established their second set of leaves, we took them home. I transferred mine into 5 inch deep pots, and put half on an indoor window sill, and half in our lean to / conservatory. If was pretty cold at the start, but that only made them hardy. They're all now getting on for 4 ft tall, and they've been topped off twice. As you say, I did get very lucky with the early sunny weather.

If you're germinating early, I don't see the need to get artificial light. They'll possibly grow too big too soon, and be weak stemmed. Just my opinion though, and this is the first year for a while that I've got it spot on.
 
Justin said:
I'll be going to Chilli Fiesta at West Dean in Chichester this year. It's on for 3 days in early August.
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How did you find it Justin? I went on Friday!
I had some of Satans ****, my mouth was burning for around half an hour afterwards.

I also had the Dorset Naga ice cream which was stunning and some boerewors from the South African stand there. Really good stuff.
Picked up various sauces and a few bags of those wonderful flaming chocolate fireballs as well :) :)
 
The_Abyss said:
Being honest, we (we germinated loads in the office as a group) didn't put a huge amount of effort into it. We bought 3 covered seed trays, each with something like 36 peat plugs, and put 3 or 4 seeds into each. When more than one germinated, the smallest were pulled out. We kept them on the window sill, and then when they had established their second set of leaves, we took them home. I transferred mine into 5 inch deep pots, and put half on an indoor window sill, and half in our lean to / conservatory. If was pretty cold at the start, but that only made them hardy. They're all now getting on for 4 ft tall, and they've been topped off twice. As you say, I did get very lucky with the early sunny weather.

If you're germinating early, I don't see the need to get artificial light. They'll possibly grow too big too soon, and be weak stemmed. Just my opinion though, and this is the first year for a while that I've got it spot on.
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Yeah I guess I could try and do it without lighting but my house is single glazed and as a result gets pretty cold in the winter (frost on the inside pane of glass :eek:). Having a light would allow me to keep the seedlings in my airing cupboard.

I'm sure last year we had a fair amount of sun in June and July, but this year its been overcast and raining almost every day for 2 months :mad:.

Still, I have about 8 cayenne chillies ripe now, so I can make this chicken Pathia recipe ive been wanting to try for ages :D.
 
To give you a bit of hope that the airing cupboard might not be necessary, our office is a steady 22 degrees, and then will drop to ambient over night once the aircon is off - in reality it probably never got below 16 or so. The chillies germinated just fine under those conditions.
 
Here is a little update from my Poly-tunnel.
I have no idea what the name of this is, it self seeded from last year. There is 2 of this plant in the tunnel, one is under this wierd purple thing plant, no idea what it is, part of my mothers collection.
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I think this one is called Long Joe? Joes Long something? I can't remember.

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This is another one that I don't know the name of. Self seeded from last year also.

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I believe this one is Jalapeño? Only because its in exactly the same spot as last year, but I'm probably wrong.

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And this is Gerald, the Dorset Naga :)
Isn't he an attractive young chilli?

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They were mostly planted a few weeks late in the season, so mostly yellow/orange.

And here's a picture of the sweet chilli sauce and hot chilli sauce I made last week. Its gone like hot cakes. 2nd bottles already!

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As I have gastroenteritis at the moment :(.. someone at work volunteered to be a taster for the first chilli from the crop. :D

The guy often cooks with scotch bonnets etc. I heard from a work conference call before I talked to him but:

"It was fantastic... made me cry whilst cooking it... tear gas!"
"The flavour was fantastic and the heat.... biblical!"
"Can I blag any more?"

:D :D
 
uvarvu said:
How did you find it Justin? I went on Friday!
I had some of Satans ****, my mouth was burning for around half an hour afterwards.

I also had the Dorset Naga ice cream which was stunning and some boerewors from the South African stand there. Really good stuff.
Picked up various sauces and a few bags of those wonderful flaming chocolate fireballs as well :) :)
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Sorry for the late reply! Not been in this thread much lately :o

I didn't go in the end, was too busy, but had a BBQ on the Sunday and my Brother in law had been and bought a massive mix of chillies which we stuffed and BBQd. :cool: He also had some sort of Naga chutney which was mindblowingly hot.

Will definitely be going next year, sounds like it was brilliant. Really gutted I didn't go :(

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On the chilli growing side of things, well I know next year not to plant so many! I'm up to my eyeballs in chillies at the moment, huge tub of them are in the freezer and a load ready to be picked again. My Naga died though :(
 
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