Top tip:

Use a cotton bud to pollinate flowers. Keep one or two by the plants and dampen slightly with water from the pot dish/saucer/tray. Move from flower to flower, then back to where you started. It really does work and will increase your yield. Every flower should produce a chilli

Note, the dish/saucer/tray wasn’t always full of water I used to do this just after watering.

Look like bishop’s hat to me:

Great for peri peri chicken.

Great to add to pickle onions too.

5 different variety of plants this year.

How do you string them to dry? Airing cupboard or pantry??

Does anyone have any tips for getting rid of white fly? I have tried some generic insecticide stuff which has done nothing. I have tried very diluted washing up liquid. I have also tried moving the plants outside in the hope the white fly would be blown away or eaten but still they persist.

I found that covering the soil with a half inch of sand helped a bit to control them, but you need something that will kill them off as well. General insecticide should work, but so should soapy water.

Last year I tried growing my Chillis in the conservatory. The white fly absolutely decimated them. Tried spraying with soapy water, leaving outside on nice days. Nothing apart from manually removing them helped.

My chillis this year are back outside in one of those cheapo frames with a plastic cover type greenhouse thing and the white fly is minimal.

Move from flower to flower, then back to where you started. It really does work and will increase your yield.

You’re only doing it properly if you say ‘buzzy buzz buzz, buzzy buzz buzz’ as you tickle each flower.

You’re only doing it properly if you say ‘buzzy buzz buzz, buzzy buzz buzz’ as you tickle each flower.

Glad to know I’m doing it right 😀

Ok chilli growers. My plans are loaded with fruit so they need picking.
Do you cut stem or pick the fruit ?

No photo?

our Cayenne are finally turning colour

but the Scotch bonnets are still way off ready to pick

A month on and my friar’s hats are still not changing colour!

meanwhile up in the North I have some flowers on some of the chilli plants!

Mine are laden, loads of pods, plenty of flowers, bushier than David Bellemy wrestling Brian Blessed in a rhododendron.

Can’t believe how different a shape my plants are from CheesyBeanZ’s

I forgot to report mine so it’s a poor crop. 😳

Can’t believe how different a shape my plants are from CheesyBeanZ’s

My other SB is a single stem with a wide canopy type top not short n bushy like the one in the pic .

bushier than David Bellemy wrestling Brian Blessed in a rhododendron.

😆 😆

I forgot to report mine so it’s a poor crop.

Just click the link underneath, mate.

Cut the stem or snap them off where the stalk joins the plant

Do you cut stem or pick the fruit ?

Scissors or secateurs wearing nitrile gloves and bolle safety glasses .
😉

I planted some seeds & am STILL waiting for them to germinate!

Happy to report I have 1 chilli (out of approx 30) that is showing signs of redness 🙂 It’s a big ‘ol friar’s hat so should be interesting!

I’ve got a good number of ripening fruits on my plants now…

I was excited about my little ripe Komodo Dragon fruit. Despite it being waaay smaller than the other dragon fruits it was the only one that was red so I thought I’d pop it in and give it a munch…

Which was a very silly thing to do. I knew these were supposed to be pretty hot but had forgotten just what I was letting myself in for. Remember that this thing was only the size of my thumb-nail where most of the other unripe Dragons are around 3cm long, I’m bloody glad it wasn’t one of the bigg’uns that I tried. Immediate, instant burning, eyes watering, an explosion of full-on heat and regret. I’d only bitten the main fruit off its stem and not started to munch on it properly and was already aboard the pain train, direct to Infernoville. Anyway, like a trooper I continued to chow down, giving it a chomping like a cut scene from Born Free. Which didn’t improve things. Within seconds I’d had to rethink my strategy, I lunged for the fridge, milk gave slight respite, as did noshing off a Tiger loaf.

Eventually the heat died away, strangely there was no burn in my throat or stomach, all concentrated in the mouth, which was nice… Anyway, the Komodo Dragon very much fulfills requirements, heat, taste (similar to a scorpion, but less overwhelming) abundant fruit and very easy to grow.

Anyway, there you go, I’ve got a good crop of Dragons, Scotch Bonnets and Cayenne on the way, I’ll not be guzzling Komodo Dragons again any time soon.

@giantalkali.. LOL! That reminds me of a mate at work who’d do almost anything for a bet (he once ate an Oxo cubed sized piece of prison soap in front of C wing staff, just for a bet)
Another staff member had some ‘Dave’s Insanity Sauce’ & said to Richie, ‘here Rich, try a tiny bit of this’, so Richie said, ‘naa, give me 1/2 a teaspoonfull’ (tiny plastic spoon).
Richie knocked it back alright but was ill for 3 days.

Richie’s crazy!

Get a load of my low hanging fruit! The shape of that top Scotch Bonnet is bloody awesome, though the couple below are less classically shaped they are at least ripening nicely.

How are the rest of you doing? Updates goddamit!

A couple of scotch bonnets picked last week

A selection, Hungarian on the left, Scotch bonnet And a Komodo dragon

Chili products coming soon…

I’ve eaten most of mine! They’re not very spicy though, so next year’s batch need to be selected by flavour.

Didn’t get any planted this year. Will sort some seeds soon to sew after Christmas.
Thinking some variety of Habanero again (Chocolate Habs were ace), and definitely want some Lemon Drop chillis. Nice lemony flavour, not too lethal. Think I have some Jalapeno seeds that really need using up.

Some funky looking peppers up there.

DezB, to get more hotter chillis, use poor quality sandy soil and don’t water them much. Putting them under pressure concentrates the flavour

Interesting! Cheers. Mine were definitely over-cared-for, the big fairies. 🙂

I grew 4 x finger chillies (disappointingly not very hot as they were meant for Indian cooking) and 4 x jalapeños. Weirdly the jalapeños haven’t fruited whilst the fingers did – they were planted together (grown from seed back in Feb/Mar) and sat next to each other in identical grow bags and looked after the same so I am struggling to understand what happened – there are a few flowers now appearing but I doubt it’s going to be hot or sunny enough to make them do anything?

Short bushy scotch bonnet has produced loads of good hot fruity chillies
[img]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4362/36490041734_a13775276f_c.jpg[/img]
Cayenne has produced loads of hot hot chillies

Tall scotch bonnet just starting to colour up , not tried any yet .

Only used rain water and fed with tomato food once a week , much better crop than last year .

Colouring up nicely this week .

Last pick over of the season for me , hows everyone else’s doing ?

CheesybeanZ – Member
Last pick over of the season for me , hows everyone else’s doing ?

Nice looking scotch bonnet but what can you do with them coz they are very hot.

Do you eat hot food everyday? 😛

You should sell them or barter trade them with something else.

As a kid my mum use to grow plenty kinds of chilies in the far east to supplement our income. Sold very well as we eat chilies everyday in the far east.
😛

I had a great crop overall, so far I have made about 20 bottles of Komodo dragon fired apple and chilli sauce that all sold to colleagues, proceeds to cancer research. I’m gonna start on a new batch tomorrow using cayenne and scotch bonnets. There’s still a good number of Dragons left so I’ll whip up a final batch of epic heat proportions at some point.

I also selected just the greenest peppers to make a special edition sauce. It looks like pond water but has a good kick, not too much crazy heat, nice drizzled across a fajita.

I love to drizzle my special sauce over a fajita.

Do you eat hot food everyday?

Pretty much eat chillies in one form or another most days .
I make quite a lot of chilli jam/ pickles , about to do a Christmas one to sell on a friends farm shop stall .

The cayenne had the best crop and is still flowering !

Got a decent crop from a superchilli and a masquerade on the window sill. Made some Jam based on this http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/8257/sweet-chilli-jam but with more chilli which turned out well.

giantalkali willing to share the apple and Chilli sauce recipe? Got a good mix of seeds I plan on growing next year and interested in recipes that would go well with habeneros and scotch bonnets etc.