Anyone grow their own chillis?

Got a load of young plants on the go now mix of superhots and just hot ones.About 30 plants in total.Just put them out in the greenhouse for a bit of natural light then back in at night whilst its still cold out.
 
The Hungarian Hot Waxes survived the winter in the conservatory and already have 2 fruits on one plant, with flower buds on all 5. Despite them being F1 hybrids, the fruits from different plants vary a fair bit in strength/heat. None is too fiery but one is a bit cheeky! (Not as cheeky as the "green bean" that Mrs Nod happily chomped into as she was eating her chick pea curry take-away earlier!!!)
 
Had a complete flop last year, none of my jalapeños or peppers even germinated.

This year, however, the windowsil garden is coming along nicely, the jalapeños rushed out of the soil the fastest, but the peppers (russian GMO bell peppers that are supposed to be the size of a small child's head) have caught and overtaken them, and my coriander is growing all over the window.
 
This is mine for this year, a Thai green chilli plant on the left and a Dorset naga on the right.
Left it a little late this year, but every single seed germinated so I ended up with more plants than I knew what to do with!

IMG_20160520_205338.jpg
 
Be good to see how they do mate but you may struggle with the naga at that size. Are you moving them out to a greenhouse?
 
I did nagas a few years ago on the window sil and they did pretty well. Or is it the fact the plant is so small for this time of year that is an issue? I do have a mini greenhouse outside they could go in.
 
Yes mate just the size of the plant for this time of year. If you could I would certainly get it in the mini greenhouse
 
I would do it over a period of a few days mate just put them out in the day and bring in at night although looks like we have a heatwave coming soon!
 
Bit quiet on this thread this year..so quick update from me.All doing well but noticed a couple of my plants had a load of aphids on them..luckily think i caught it early enough as treated with bug clear and got off any visible ones and seems to have done the trick.I've also got a load of marigolds in there now to encourage hover flies in to feed on the aphids along with some ladybirds I caught in the garden.Fingers crossed this will work.So far no slugs at all although they are present as seen them all round the greenhouse but few weeks back I laid a 2-3 line of salt around the inside of the base of the greenhouse so unless they learn how to pole vault I am confident they wont venture in.:beer:
Quick video update from this morning.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjPo7-AGEI4
 
I'll be attempting some chilis next year, using the rest of this year to prep a small greenhouse and get everything in order

So far I have seeds of
Carolina Reaper
Lemon Habanero
White Habanero

Might pick up some Jalapeno and scotch bonnets if I get round to it...
 
Mine are starting to flower. I think I will start them earlier next year. I had the put them in the polytunnel earlier than I wanted as we went on holiday. I am just doing jalapeno and purple jalapeno.

Slugs are a big problem in my poly. I've tried nemaslug but not noticing a difference.
 
Nice selection to grow there Rob..Julie I had few issues with slugs last year and did find the copper tape round the pots and beer traps really helped but still got the odd ninja slug get to the plants.This year i am hoping the band of salt will keep them out as green house is on 20mm shingle with weed control matting underneath so they cant come up through the ground.Looks like a drug dealer has tossed about 5kgs of cocaine in there but if it works i will live with it
 
I go out and gather them up in a bucket of salty water. Only 10 tonight. One day last week I lost count.
 
Growing Apache again this year, always a reliable harvest. Also, got a couple of Scotch Bonnet plants, I'm not sure how well they'll do but we'll see..
 
Adam Priseman said:
Growing Apache again this year, always a reliable harvest. Also, got a couple of Scotch Bonnet plants, I'm not sure how well they'll do but we'll see..
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Yeah the apache are a nice hardy chilli and cant go wrong with them.I have scotch bonnets on the go this year just hope they turn out to be scotch bonnets as last lot we grew turned out to be a totally different super mild chilli!!Not amused.
 
StuartH said:
Yeah the apache are a nice hardy chilli and cant go wrong with them.I have scotch bonnets on the go this year just hope they turn out to be scotch bonnets as last lot we grew turned out to be a totally different super mild chilli!!Not amused.
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Apache have a decent amound of heat too!

Last year a mate at work grew super hot naga something or other and gave me a couple to use for seeds to grow myself, I cut them up and got the juice under my nails as I did it...

It was painful to touch anything for a good 12 hours after!

That's hot!
 
lol yeah you have to be careful dealing with the superhots.Have you ever eaten one?..they make an apache feel like a bell pepper :D
 
My Thai green seems to be coming along OK.
IMG_20160628_062012.jpg

However my nagas seem to be struggling. They appear healthy enough, but all the new growth seems to be coming from the base. It's been ages since I last grew these, is this normal?
IMG_20160628_062032.jpg
 
You will get a lot of new growth lower down thats normal,alot of people top their plants to encourage them to bush out but i wouldnt with yours at that size as you may struggle to get it to fruit.Are the leaves getting scorched?
 
StuartH said:
You will get a lot of new growth lower down thats normal,alot of people top their plants to encourage them to bush out but i wouldnt with yours at that size as you may struggle to get it to fruit.Are the leaves getting scorched?
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Sorry, never saw your reply originally, but back again with another problem.

They have all grown fairly well and flowering plenty. Had a few chill's of the Thai plant, but my two nagas are really struggling.

They seem to be really quite healthy, had a good growth spurt since my last post and are covered in flowers. But once the flowers open they drop off after a few days.
I know they do this if they don't get pollinated, so have tried to help them along by moving the pollen around myself between flowers. The trouble is, they don't seem to be producing any pollen.

On my Thai plant if I rub the anther with my finger I can see plenty of pollen. But not the same on my naga's, they seem to be dry as a bone.

As there are no other signs that they are unhealthy in any way I don't think they are lacking nutrients. Looking online I found a suggestion that plants may not produce pollen if the humidity is too low. So I spent six weeks with them in the mini greenhouse putting in a bowl of boiling water every day and mist spraying the plants. There was a regular condensate on the inside if the greenhouse suggesting that humidity was pretty high but there is no change.

They are back indoors now on the window sill, still flowering and then dropping. Can they just be duff plants?
 
If my chillies are indoors, I help things along with a soft paintbrush and move along the row so I'm cross pollenating them rather than trying to self fertilise them. Still get some flowers dropping off but not as many as when they're left to do it themselves!
 
My overwintered Hungarian Hot Wax only produced one or 2 fruits each over the Summer so next year I'll start again from seed and keep 'em in the conservatory, letting them go outdoors on hot days (if they ask nicely!)
 
Nod said:
If my chillies are indoors, I help things along with a soft paintbrush and move along the row so I'm cross pollenating them rather than trying to self fertilise them. Still get some flowers dropping off but not as many as when they're left to do it themselves!
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I have been doing this but to no avail. On other plants I can see the pollen both in the flower and on the paintbrush. But these plants seem to be growing flowers that don't contain pollen.


StuartH said:
http://www.thechilliking.com/chilli-plant-flower-drop/
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Thanks. I came across this article already and addressed each point, I can't see any of those issues being a problem.

Well, I can regarding the point on flowers not being pollinated. But not for the reasons they suggest. My plants seem to be shooting blanks!
 
Bump for 2017

Going for a less is more approach next year. 10 plants max and not bothering with purple jalapeno.

I think i'll sow seeds 1st Jan as that seemed a popular date last year.
 
Oops!!! I left my plants out in a relatively sheltered spot but I'm not sure they've survived! Didn't do too well this year anyway so I'll start again from seed in spring.
 
I'm not sure it counts really as I bought a chilli plant from Sainsburys... It was small, but three repottings later, we've now abandoned it. It has got so large and productive. I've got a cupboard full of dried chilli flakes that will keep us going for a while. :)
 
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