A 77-cell module of mixed chilli seedlings sits atop a weighing scale, which shows 4.126kg
I haven't watered these modules in 2 weeks and they still weigh over 4kg. But it's a temporary set-back - I'll pot on, and bigger plants will suck up excess moisture rather than succumb to it. And tbf, the plants might not like the sodden mess, but the sciarid flies are having their best year ever 😂
Next year it's either Sinclair or something inert. This year I was led by price and options, because I wanted to buy a mixed pallet to help with the clay on the plot. Figured it'd work out fine if I was careful. Either it wasn't fine, or I wasn't sufficiently careful 🤔
I use both, but I'm increasingly thinking I don't use enough. Sludgification of this new compost batch feels like a wake up call. Water retention seems small by comparison to the clag. Wondering what to try next year. Any thoughts?
Me too. They come with a tray that has inserts to raise them off the bottom. But I don't use that, because I never used to need it. Clearly I should 🤦
Two chilli plants of the same variety (C. Pubescens, Mini Olive) The camera fails to pick this up under artificial light, but the one on the left is going yellow. It has also shed leaves, and looks a lot less healthy than the one on the right.
The same two plants a couple of weeks later. The sickly one has been moved into a vermiculite-rich compost, an has overtaken its stronger sibling. The one in the regular compost is now turning yellow, dropping leaves and struggling to put on new growth.
I messed this up by having the flags reversed on these pics - sorry. But basically, the plant on the left was in a worse state than the one on the right, as its compost sludgified.. Then I potted it on into a vermiculite-rich mixture, and now it's winning.
Chilli roots really need air.
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Drizzle of pizza crust 😗👌
Also, I just happened to have a big jar of puree open in the fridge, so when it was still tasting a bit harsh, that was what I reached for. Initially I envisaged just peppers and a tube of sun-dried, but I guess my annuums were pretty pokey, and did little to quench the fire.
No, but I wanted something that had the earthy flavour from the superhots while still being palatable to friends and family, so I had to dilute the heat with something. I thought the umami tang of the tomatoes would work with that.
A recipe for chilli sauce. The ingredients list reads: 250g shallots 80g garlic 40g chinense peppers, inc. super-hot 200g annuum peppers, mixed 200g red/yellow sweet pepper 400g tinned tomato 250g sundried tomato paste 100g tomato puree 200g apple 100g light brown sugar 1.5tsp turmeric 600ml cider vinegar And the instructions: 1. Fry the shallots and the garlic, and add to a large, stainless steel pan. 2. Deseed the chillies if desired. Roughly chop all the peppers and fry together, in batches if necessary, and add to pan. 3. Put the pan on a low heat, add the apple and stir until cooked. 4. Add all tomato ingredients and cook gently until they start to look silky. 5. Add the vinegar, sugar and turmeric, stir till it’s nearly boiling, then whizz up with a hand blender. 6. Add salt to taste, and pour into sterilised bottles or jars while still hot. Put the lids on and allow to cool.
Sorry that took a while, but here you go. Like most things I do, it's made up as I go based on the mood and what's in the cupboard. And you can never really tell what it tastes like till the following day, so that kind of adds to the fun... 🌶️🌱🍽️
The washing up always gets me. As soon as the tap water hits a dirty pan, spoon, funnel etc, the air is filled with superhot aerosols that catch in the back of the throat and the top of the nose, and settle on exposed skin to surprise me later.
I heat the bottles, then add the sauce hot, cap and leave to cool.
Certainly. It's a bit rough and ready, but I'll add it here once I've found the scrap of paper I scrawled it on 👍
It's one of the pokier ones. The next batch might be more up your street, based more on big, mild annuums.
I'd like to empty the 2025 chilli pot to the left, with the ragged old door mat draped over. Recycle the compost, etc. But she's taken to sleeping on top of it, and I haven't the heart to ruin that. Especially if it gives her a height advantage in the battle to hold on to her territory.
17 bottles and one small jar of a very pokey but deceptively orange chilli sauce. I'm still working on the label.
Here's the result of me raiding the freezer the other night. It's a good blend, but has less of that earthy naga flavour I hoped for. Makes me think that the 7-Pot Brain Strain has it, but the CP115 Chocolate doesn't. Pity, as that's the one I've got seedlings of. It is a real looker though 👀🌶️🌱
Interesting. I'm reading ~9k at soil height with the lights down low, and 36k on high. Far more than I expected!
They've taken a knock, for sure, and some won't make it. Trying to view this as lesson is to work with what remains, which is already more than I have room for, rather than re-sow 🤔
There are a lot of variables to control. It's a pity that when you get one thing wrong, the results are usually bad - very rare it works out serendipitously for the better!
Had these on about half brightness, which I assumed would be fine 🤷 They're near minimum now, and though it upsets me to do so, with meddling kids around I might need to tape the dimmer in place - they've already dashed my mini propagator of replacement seeds across the kitchen floor 🙁
Also, gloves, shoes, spectacles and car keys, to name a few. Still, you can't help but love her.
Serious problems with the new seedling setup:
1. Light too bright = prematurely dead cotyledons
2. Bigger heat mat leaves no room for heat to escapeso overheats
3. Compost dries like concrete, looks wet but isn't, water runs down the edges and isn't absorbed
Hoping all is not lost 🤷🌶️🌱
A pan full of regular hot peppers, frying on a low heat, with a bowl of superhots about to be added.
Time to raid the freezer. Here we go...
Mg - 😬 Most plants are fine, but certain chinense take a critical dive, usually when I'm on holiday & not there to spot the signs. Dorset Naga seems particularly needy & starts stressing before it's even out of diapers. Epsom salts help, but I'm experimenting with banana peel for slower release.
That's bang on the nail, Chris - it looks great when it goes in, but breaks down in weeks. Peat isn't an option here, but I might try potting some into a mix with last year's compost, which has the sludgiest parts already gone and the more resilient structure remaining.
Gypsum on order. If it helps with BER, what a result that would be! The heat we get these days make it a real struggle with big plants in pots. Anything with small pods is fine, but trying to keep even watering over the time it takes a Beaver Dam to develop requires more attention than I have.
It's quiet a loamy mix, which I thought would help, but it's clearly not enough. I need to be bolder with the additions. Just bought a sack of vermiculite, but I hadn't thought of gypsum - tempted to give that a go as it'd help with planting out too (we're on clay here in London)
Thanks - this is a good tip. I don't know how that plays with the chemistry for capsicums, but I have found that a preference for drainage outweighs most other factors, so there's great scope there for experimenting.
Haha! I tried - still not good. So I put one out for the fox that I'd used for coffee, and it's still there - she likes coffee even less than I like the cups 😉
I'll say from the outset that I'll never use peat again, but I think what we didn't have to worry about back then was stability. Peat was just peat, and bogs are (historically) stable. But imagine making repeatable compost when you have the driest spring on record, and then one of the wettest.
And I hope you never will beyond this post 😊 They were a very random Christmas gift from my mother-in-law. Don't think they're hugely processed - taste like wheat husks glued together with starch - but neither are they hugely edible, if your idea of edible includes concepts such as "tasting nice."
