Chilli heads.

germinated a couple of @spinnnout lfgss lemon seeds

Ace, happy to see I dried them OK! If anyone else wants any, hit my inbox with address details and I'll try and post them out in the next few weeks..

Some of the plants i germinated in august are trying to flower despite being 6” tall and in tiny pots.
Hopefully just plucking them off will keep the plant growing until I can repot them in spring.
They’re on a cold windowsill and I’m hoping they won’t grow too much to repot them at home.

Winter chillis seem pretty happy still. Letting the two bigger ones flower.

If anyone wants one of those little ones in the propagator then give me a shout. In e17.

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So we have a little indoor setup because, reasons.
As there’s nothing currently in there it seemed a good spot to throw all the random out of season seedlings for the time being. They seem to like it in there.

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Winter cayenne :D

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You can plant it's seeds in a month so the plant can watch it's kid grow this summer 🙂

Woah. Headfuck. Excellent weird timing.

I dunno about everyone else but I’m itching to get started once we’re into the new year.

Edit- does anyone want this unopened baggy of 25ish mixed hot/super hot seeds?
They sent 2 as freebies but we’re not into really hot stuff so don’t need. Planted one bag to use as trading plants at the allotment ;)

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I dunno about everyone else but I’m itching to get started once we’re into the new year.

..yeah - while cleaning out my fridge the other day I looked through the bag of seeds I keep there and made plans what to grow this year.
I think the earliest I started was indeed in mid-January, and that did work well (I already had really nice, established plants in spring / early summer) - but there are two downsides starting super early indoors:

• you will have to keep the plants happy for a long time with artificial light -> this costs money
  
• there almost certainly will be aphids, fungus gnats etc. - and you have to deal with them, as there are no beneficial organisms around that eat them - this is doable (lots of yellow sticky traps, keeping top of the soil as dry as possible etc.) but it is kind of a hassle / disgusting
  
  

Long story short I decided I'll start in March 🙂

Interesting, we started around late feb/March last year and had a pretty shabby season tbh.
Plan is to do the first propagator in mid-late Jan and again in early March at the latest.
We already have a few seedlings under lights. Plan is to get them happy in there, repot onto the windowsill, then move them to the potting shed on the allotment to start hardening off. It’s insulated and sunny in there so will be fine once we’re past the worst of winter.

Can compare results ;)

Don't suppose anyone has any scotch bonnet seedlings going spare?
I fancy growing a few more and I'd like to ensure fruit this year if possible.

Not got any scotch bonnets but got a few unknown Caribbean seeds from an allotment neighbour if they’re of interest?
Can send seed or germinate a few for you late Jan if you want.
No worries if you need bonnets though.

Bonnets for me. They're the only chilli I like the taste of (bar pickled jalapenos in my wife's mexican cooking)

Thanks for the offer though. I'll keep an eye at all the local nurseries once the weather turns.

Disney+ has a new series that might interest some here.

Super hot: The spicy world of pepper people.

Misc superhot seedlings available in e17 if anyone wants one?
I’m keeping the couple of variegated ones but others up for grabs :)

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Feeling miles behind looking at all those!!

After nothing superhot germinated last year, have invested a few quid in a proper box, along with some compost plugs and a carolina reaper is emerging already :D

If it goes well, will have some to give away.

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We're heading to the garden centre today. What sort of propogation thing should we get for chilli (& tomato) seeds?

Anything heated, with a reservoir for water, capillary matting, with a lid but ventilation too.

Plus a grow light unless you have a south facing windowsill

Little experiment with some seeds saved from one of the long red peppers from Sainsburys.
They grow crazy fast so thought I’d twist a couple and see what happens.

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We have a cayenne managing to ripen :)

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The chili plants for the season comes along quite nicely.
Kept them in a relatively cool room while still providing lots of light, keeps them nice and stubby.

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picked this up from a market craft fair type thingy this morning, really tasty! he also had slightly spicier one with blackberry which was super fruity too

edit: looks like there’s a couple of stockists in London as well

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@niclas these are looking really healthy 🙂

Love chili plants at this stage, where they're developing their first true leaves..
I'm not even there yet this year (as I just started germinating the seeds like 10 days ago) but am encouraging them to grow every day 😅

Turns out getting a few bits of kit makes things much easier. Who'd have thought?

Could do with a really small fan, otheriwse compost plugs, light, a heat pad and propagator have made all the difference.

6 Carolina reapers, 3 lemon drop and 3 mini meanies (so far).

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Looking good! 👍

You're aware you don't need to keep those bigger ones in the greenhouse, right?

You're aware you don't need to keep those bigger ones in the greenhouse, right?

Laregly kept in there for the light but also because they all need some attention.
Will move the ones in compost plugs to small pots, and move the larger ones out later, thanks for the nudge!