More chilli seeds, super hots.

Taunton Farmers market today, so me and Jane popped up town to see my favourite chilli sauce maker The Chillees to stock up on some Naga BURN sauce. They had a nice surprise for me, some chilli seeds.. and where very kind indeed, two types of habanero, long hot & paper lantern, three types of Naga chilli, jolokia, bengal & dorset.

Got them home and planted them straight up into coir pellets, labeled them up and stuck them in the propagator, I hope these germinate as these are Hot hot hot chillies, super hot in fact, saved a few seeds from each just in case they don't come to anything so I can have a second go if these don't germinate, the super hot chillies are known to be a pain to get going, so fingers crossed.

Thanks again to The Chillees for supplying the seeds.

Chillies are getting big.

The chillies are getting quite big now, so some have been evicted from the light box and moved to the bedroom windowsill. The six biggest plants have now got a new home in the bedroom, Gusto, Jalapeno, Scotch Bonnet, and Long Slim hot peppers and Gypsy F1, Peperone for the sweet peppers. Oh and the Tomato Garten Perle for the hanging baskets have taken up position next to them.



Been doing a bit of reading about pinching out the tops of the chilli plants to increase yield, and as the Long Slim has got to this point I thought I would give a go, last year I didn't do this and most of my chillies where long and lanky. I'll see how the Long Slim chillie plant responds to this before doing the same to the others.



Pinched off the top half of the Long Slim, poor old fella. Even had a few flowers forming on the stems.



Staked the stem to give support for the new growth, which better happen or I won't be very happy stunting the growth of this cayenne pepper, as I gave my other Cayenne plant away as a house warming gift.

All the other peppers are still in the light box. With a lot more room they should come along nicely. They have all been culled to one plant per pot now as well.

Goodbye Plot 69... Plot 119 continues!

A beautiful sunny Sunday and first of all we went up to Plot 69, took all the canes and put them in the car and also all the metal mesh sheets then handed in the keys.  Sad in a way to be leaving that site as it was our first allotment and we put a lot of hard work and effort into it, however having two allotments split over two sites just isnt working very well, two sets of tools, splitting our time and not giving 100% to either.  So we said our goodbyes and headed off down to Plot 119 to soak up some sun.  Definitely made the right decision, Plot 119 works so much better for us and has so much more to offer, it is always such a pleasant place to be, except when its flooded!



Had a chat with the new plot secretary and discussed the possibility of taking on another half plot next to ours, would be lovely, and give us a bit more room to grow some potatoes and fruit bushes, will have to wait and see.  The plots either side of us haven't been really cultivated at all this year, one due to illness, so it may be that one will be available for us to take on.  Apparently there are at least 18 vacant plots so far that the committee are aware of, and that is prior to rent day.  Rent day may bring a few more, guess the dreadful weather has put a few people off this year.



Did some more digging today, got the last of the right hand side dug over.  Will do it once more before planting season, soil is looking excellent though, full of worms and goodness, bit damp but not many weeds at all.



 

Polytunnel Eviction Day!

Had some sunshine today for a change, long time since we've seen it!  So headed down to Plot 119 for a busy day.  First of all we cleared out the sad looking polytunnel which has not really survived the winter very well, more like a big fishing net with all the holes in it.  Got rid of all the junk and cleared out the shed to put in all the things worth keeping.  Moved out the big planting table as well, will keep that as quite useful.  Cleared some of the woodchips from the floor to make another path then took the polytunnel apart.  Keeping some of the metal work, will find a good use for it I expect.  Now we are left with another good sized planting plot and it has really opened up the whole allotment, really pleased.  Wish we could move the shed behind the greenhouse now to tidy things up but expect it would fall apart if we tried to shift it!  Planning to buy a new one eventually.  Simon had a good clear up in the greenhouse, getting ready for the chillies, made sure all his new huge plant pots fit.  Nice to be working in the sun although still pretty chilly.  Also Simon went and saw the chairman who was on the site, managed to get a big water storage container for £2, perfect for collecting rainwater and even better when Simon puts a tap in the bottom  Bargain.  Met a few more allotmenters last night as we went to the AGM, good to get involved.

 

More Peppers re-potted & Chilli update

The Sweet Peppers and Chillies are doing great so I have had to re-pot six more of the plants from their small pots into the 10cm pots.



Of the hot peppers, Superchili, Masquerade, Krakatoa, and Apache are now in the 10cm pots. Some of these still have two plants per pot as I'm hesitant to 'cull' them until one plant really out performs the other. Barancio and Big Banana sweet peppers have also found new homes in the 10cm pots.



I've been quite surprised on how quickly the peppers  become root bound. Last year they where planted from seedlings into large pots straight out into the greenhouse quite late in the year. As  last year (2012) was my first year growing peppers I did quite a lot wrong, well not wrong really, just did quite a few things that could have been done better.



It's getting a little packed in the light box now, so hopefully the summer will get a move on and come early this year so I can get these into the greenhouse. The only other option is when they start to get a lot bigger is to put them on every available windowsill we have in the house.

Also I have had a couple more seeds germinate as you can see from the picture above, Loco F1, and a Birdseye Chilli. Along with the other peppers that hadn't germinated I had to put these in the airing cupboard to try and increase the temperature which worked for these two but not the others.

I have still not had any germination success with the Goats Ear Chilli/Pepper which came from the Allotment seed swap, which is a pity because I can't really find any reference to this chilli unless it is in fact a Goat Pepper. Still nothing from the Habanaro or surprisingly enough the Prairie Fire which I grew with great success last year. The only Sweet Pepper not to germinate has been the Ingrid.

 

I'll try again at getting these to germinate using the paper towel and plastic bag method. Quote below from www.chileseeds.co.uk

Take 2 bits of kitchen paper, put both bits together and fold in half. Damp the paper (as wet as a wrung-out sponge) In one quarter of it place the seeds and fold it over itself like a sandwich. Place the kitchen paper which is a quarter, inside a freezer bag, catch some air inside and tie a knot in it, like a balloon.  See pictures below. Label the bag and place in a warm place such as an airing cupboard or heated propagator.  Repeat for each variety. Check seeds every 2 days and damp down the paper if they start to dry out. Once your seeds have sprouted you can transplant to small pots i.e. 75 mm. (We use multi purpose compost with vermiculite mixed in to aid drainage.) Add water to your compost and mix well; it should be as moist as a wrung-out sponge before you put it into your containers.  Ideally you want the compost to be in a warm place before planting takes place so as not to shock the seedlings.  Fill your containers 25 mm from the top.  We use a plastic plant label or pencil to pick the seedling up and drop it in the middle of the pot, do not worry which way the seedling is facing it will sort its self out as it grows.  Sprinkle a little compost over the seedling.  Water to settle them in with a spray bottle. Label with a plastic stick label using a permanent marker pen.   As the seedlings grow use a spray bottle to keep them moist.  You can always seal the top with cling film with a tiny hole in. This keeps the seeds warm but they can breath.

Repotted some of the Peppers and Chillies

Repotting time for some of the peppers and chilies. They seem to be growing very fast under the lights. Re-potted the Cayenne, Jalapeños, Scotch Bonnet, Long Slim, Pimiento and Gusto hot peppers, as well as the Peperone and Gypsy F1 sweet peppers into the 10cm pots.

The other plants are coming along great, so it will not be that long before I will have to re-pot some more. I hope we have a early summer this year as the way these are growing I am going to run out of space in the house at this rate before the weather has warmed up enough to get them in the greenhouse.

Free seeds. vegetableseeds.net

Well my order from http://www.vegetableseeds.net/ came this morning, thanks to this blog and website £10 worth of seeds all free to me.

This time around I have got yet MORE chillies and peppers, along with some bits for the garden as well as the allotment.



I got a few more chillie seeds, Scotch Bonnet yellow, Habenero Orange, Bulgarian Carrot. Some sweet peppers, Marconi and Telimena.

Some herb seeds for the meter square herb beds, Green Mint, Parsley Grune Perle & Extra Curled.

Some Garden Perle Tomato's for the hanging baskets.

Ogen Melon seeds as I fancy having ago at growing some of my favourite fruit.

And last of all, some flower seeds for the front of the house, Alyssum 'Carpet of Snow'

So once again, thank you to this blog site and vegetableseeds.net for supplying the seeds.

First Day of Hard Work

Both got the week off so straight down to Plot 119 this morning to get started on getting ready for the Spring.  If it ever comes!  First job was for Simon to put up a third arch, making three altogther for his hops, he planted his Fuggles hop today too, so three growing down there at the moment.  I prepped the soil between the two leek beds and put in three rows of shallots, different varieties, Red Sun, Picasso (did them last year and were pleased with them) and Golden Gourmet.  Then we had the mammoth task of moving four raised beds that we decided to relocate, a lot of digging and huffing but worth the effort.  Filled two of them with Senshyu onions, a bit late I know but they were a bargain and look quite healthy.  Not much room left on the raised bed side now, one bed left for the asparagus when they get delivered in March, and the bit where the strawberries are is going to be dug over and used for veg.  Strawberries weren't impressive enough last year to keep.  The final raised bed went in down at the end of the arch and that is allocated for my flowers.

After that Simon washed the greenhouse and I did some weeding, not too much weediness around but what there was is now history.  Something is still eating my January King cabbages, found one tiny slug but that was all.  More slug pellets and covered with netting AGAIN.  Mind you, after being submerged with all the floods I'm just glad something is still growing!  At the moment we have 2 beds of onions, one white and one red, both doing ok, and four rows of leeks which are looking leeky.  Dug up three celariac to take home for celariac mash - quite small but very flavoursome.  Also dumped four bags of rotted chicken manure and some straw around the fruit bushes we transferred from our other plot last week.  Transferred two goosberries and a jostaberry we didnt want to leave behind when we give that one up later this month.  All that is left up the 'top' plot now is a bundle of 6ft canes and some sprouting broccoli which hopefully will be ready to harvest when we hand our keys back in!

Back to Plot 119...

Next part of the plan - the polytunnel has to go.  So another big job.  Have to dismantle it and cut back the brambles behind, move the woodchips from the floor to put on the paths and then dig the area over, ready for beans, runner, climbing and broad!  Hopefully done that by the end of the week, weather permitting.



 

 

1st Chilli Cull, :(

Well it had to be done, the 1st round of the chilli plant cull, the weaker seedlings in all the pots have been removed. I have still left 2-3 plants in each pot for now to make sure that as they grow some more I have the strongest left to go into the Allotment green house. So there will be another cull in a few weeks time.

As an experiment I have left all the Jalapeno plants growing but twisted the stems together. To maybe create a Bonsai Chilli (Bonchi) not sure yet if I will, the keeping the option there just in case.

Chillies growing great in the Growlight Garden

Well the chillies are doing really well so far, the extra light they are getting and using the compost and feed really seems to be doing the trick. Nice green foliage short and firm stems, far better than last year. The capillary watering system works really well, and I'm glad I got this growlight garden system now.

Some of the chillies and peppers have had more than one successful germination per pot, so I'm going to have to "cull" quite a few chillies and keep only the strongest plants to grow on, seems a pity, but from what I have read in books and on-line having more than one chilli pepper per pot has a negative effect on fruit production.

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