Chilli heads.

An old favourite back in rotation at mine, love this brand and this one is particularly good!

El Yucateo Green habanero is a personal favourite

Neglected the Polytunnel for a few weeks. Bonus crop on today's visit, more flowers still too.

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First time trying to overwinter some of the chillis, feels very wrong cutting these back and downsizing the pots. Hopefully they'll do OK under a table in the flat with a few hours of light a day. If anyone would do this differently, let me know, still have about 8 plants outside.

I have been cutting down plants quite aggressively the last years, they come back nice and strong very fast.
The biggest issue I have had is aphids, if you keep an eye on your plants and remove them as soon they show it should be all good.
They do well as "bonsais" too, and is a nice little winter project. With enough light and nutrition they will produce fruits as well.
Check out https://www.fatalii.net/Bonsai_Chiles_Bonchi for some inspiration.

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Here is one a couple of weeks after a complete cut down.
It was grown in a large container, so the stem is quite robust.

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If anyone would do this differently, let me know

See my reply to aglet from three days ago
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15564739/

..or to put it another way: when you keep them in a warm room you should also be giving them lots of light (like, artificial light on top of the bit of sun they get).
Or put them somewhere cold-ish (so they go in a hibernation mode) with less light.

Your pruning looks totally fine to me, could cut off even more if you wanted.

@enNiclas ..awesome, especially the top one you posted looks great!

And yea I was just thinking of bonsais as well, have read that fatalii.net article with great interest a while back!

aphids

I cannot get rid of mine for love nor money no matter how throughly I clear the plan as soon as I go away for a weekend there is a population explosion

Thanks!

Another upside to overwinter them as “bonchis” is that in the spring you have a really nice start for a plant if deciding to move it for a larger container.

Totally agree with your comment above about light and temperature.

They've been the bane of my kitchen windowsill.

Ha that's exactly where my problem plant is, I tempted to out it outside on of these cold evenings to freeze the buggers off

Mine went outside a couple of weeks ago and seemed to do a lot better, back in today now that the windowsill tomato is dead and it's getting pretty cold out. Ate the only chilli off it but there are the starts of 2 more that'll probably amount to nothing.

Harvested what was left on my 3 Aji limon plants. I fermented the green chillies with some basil last year and made a sort of relish. Will defo be doing the same.

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..nice!

🙂

Last berries from my Habanero plant..

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In other news I have made a list of what varieties to grow in 2021, then went ahead and chucked all the chosen seeds together in the same glass of water to pre-soak, and will let them sprout without labeling; just keeping the strongest seedlings and planting them, making it kind of a surprise party
🙂

Already in the steam boxes now..

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Is now the time to get seeds going for next year?

I have never sown before the Christmas break before, this seems so early, do you keep them under lamps until spring? Can't imagine them not becoming super leggy but keen to be proven wrong

The trays are on top of my internet router, it's about 30°C in there.
I remember somebody advising me that this is a tad hot but for me it did work out well for the majority of seeds in the past..

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Is now the time to get seeds going for next year?

No, basically it is way too early.
There are some wild varieties in there that might take 3-4 weeks to germinate, so taking this into account - but still this is way too early for a "normal" cycle.
I just wanted to try and get some serious plants going under artificial lights this winter (have not done this before). Which basically answers your question @greentricky - yes they do have to be under lamps until next spring. Though I know of people who just let some grow on a south facing window, even in the winter; sure those are leggy but they don't mind..

I've struggled with when they get leggy to soon in moving them outside and them not being strong enough, less of an issue if they are just window dwellers

Yea, to bring them outside you need them to be compact and strong.
Some say creating "wind" (switching on a ventilator two times a day for a few minutes) helps with strong stems, but I think having a lot of light, close to the plant (plus white foil all around / on the floor, to reflect the light) is the most important for them to they grow bushy.

First try making a sauce using the Birds eye chillis from our flat plant... Pretty punchy and tastes pretty good but the bottle/colour combo makes it pretty unappealing and hard to get anyone to try...

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