The 2011 Chilli growing thread - it's scorching!

This is simply uncanny! I can't believe I didn't notice this thread earlier!

My department has a chilli growing competition and mine's not doing too well. They've just finished flowering, so I'm hoping mine will grow some chillies, as everyone else seems to be popping them out.

I've got them against the window at the moment - are there any places that they might be best suited to?
 
The Cayennes seem to have stopped flowering + growing and are just concentrating on fruit ripening.

My Scotch Bonnets are too tall... and just keep growing! I've got 23 chillies between two plants. They now don't fit on the windowsill as they just get bent against the ceiling. There's no room in the greenhouse and I'm generally struggling for space.
 
Some more harvest photos :cool:

So I've had a lot of chillies off last year's plants now - far too many to eat and/or do things with immediately despite my best efforts. I've still got around 48 on the plants in various stages of ripeness / growth, too. I dried some of them out so they'll store for later use ... that's a very full Kilner.
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This is a small selection of the ones that have come off over the last week ...
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Those are arranged by type, so there are some cayennes and jalapenos (both grown from Sainsbury's seeds), some orange wonder (already eaten 10 or so of these this week, so not many left on the plate!), a mini scotch bonnet, and what I think is a Hungarian hot wax (very pale greeny yellow before ripening).

The mixed bag I grew stuff from all turned out to be either Hungarian hot wax or Hatch chillies, as far as I'm able to ID them.
 
BTW, J Arthur Bowers multipurpose compost is absolute garbage. Its more like weed killer than anything.

When I was growing my chillis I planted some in different composts to see what would happen... the ones in JAB compost don't fertilise too good and have very poor pollen.

The ones I planted in West Plus compost are great... a slight touch of the finger and you get tons of pollen. Real easy to pollinate and 100% success rate.

The ones in JAB, the flowers go hard and have no pollen and drop off.
 
Picked my first chilli off one of the plants today, felt bad but it needed to be done.

Was making a roast tomato/garlic pasta sauce and thought it made sense. Has added a nice heat to the dish.
Had a bite off the end of the chilli first just to see how it tasted, good times.

We've grown plenty of herbs to use in food before but never any fruit/vegetables. Am quite happy with how the chilli plants turned out, will definitely be growing again next year. :)
 
Bri said:
My 1st ever attempt at growing stuff to eat, thought I'd start with Jalapenos, coming along nicely and now have 4 flowers that have come out!

Plants
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You should really separate those plants into individual pots my friend :)
 
i must admit i did want to grow some but by the time i saw this thread it was the wrong season. I have cheated and got some from homebase!(apache)
They have the flowers and some are starting to come through.
might nip back down there and get another plant
 
What's this chat about pollinating them? I'm yet to have any flowers but got a bit of growth. They went from doing sod all to doing quite a lot quite quickly (well 2 of my 5 pots did anyway). Then suddenly, in one pot that I thought was totally done for one plant started coming through.
I've left it far to late I suspect but it's enjoyable seeing them. Two of my pots have 2 plants in them each about 8" now. They had 5 or 6 seeds in them so who knows what happened to the other boys.
 
ants83 said:
i must admit i did want to grow some but by the time i saw this thread it was the wrong season. I have cheated and got some from homebase!(apache)
They have the flowers and some are starting to come through.
might nip back down there and get another plant
Click to expand...

I bought the Apache's from homebase and they are coming through lovely. I currently have about 15 chillies growing at the moment. I don't think the plant can handle anymore growth as all the new flowers are simply dying off. I have two Apaches. One that I continuously cut the flowers off until it was roughly 2" (that's the one with 15 chillies on it) and one that I cut back. It's just flowering now and is a right little bushy mofo!

As for pollinating them, just make sure you rub the pollen off one flower and pass it to the next. Use an earbud or your finger or something similar. It works fine :)
 
Chillies can self-pollinate, so all you really need to do is to tap the flowers to make the pollen fall off the anthers and onto the stamen. I use a mini artists' paint brush to pollinate them so I can make sure I get them all nicely. It also avoids wasting pollen, as some flowers don't make very much and others make tonnes - this way it collects in the brush :)
 
Mine have surged massively in size the last few days including the fruit and the amount of buds . Will get some more pictures up soon. Hopefully cayennes will ripen soon
 
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