MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Hello fellow pepper growers,
Work have decided to do a pepper growing comp.
We will all be given approx 4 seeds of 3 types of peppers they are:
A numex Twilight
A scoth bonnet
A Ring of fire
Quite how they judge the winner who knows…Size of plant?amount of chillis?not a clue.
Is there any use in adding tea leaves/ ground coffee into the soil.seems to be allot of French press left overs at work/
What are you top tips for growing them?
Also any links to past threads vaugley recall one quite recently?
Lots of pepper love
LLL
We had a little bell/sweet pepper plant for a school growing competition over the summer holidays.
Transferred to a larger tub. Plenty of nice rich fertiliser. Left in a sunny area and watered regularly.
We got three good size peppers growing on it - looking all set to bask in parental glory.
Then the bugs ate them all. 🙁
So my number one tip would be cover them and watch out for bugs!
hot ones...
get them started in February, in the sunniest window you can find, over a radiator.
pot them on in to larger and larger pots.
top them once they start growing (or top half and leave half to compare), to make them bushier.
plenty of water, plenty of sunlight
anything that's good for tomatoes seems to work fine,eg tomato growbag compost, tomato feed if you feed them (but don't over feed them).
lots more sunlight
wash the aphids and whitefly off with soapy water
be patient - my habaneros planted in Feb, flowered in late August, gave peppers well in to November.
[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/i-bought-a-chilli-plant ]Chilli thread[/url]
Wouldn't have thought this was a great time of year to start your competition - most advice says plant March-Apr time.
https://www.southdevonchillifarm.co.uk/how-to/growing-chilli-plants/
lots of tips there - they both know a thing or two about growing peppers.
DezB -
yes.Fully aware.
So far doing well choose the wrong time of the year to plant also appears to have got the wrong type of soil.All in the name of fun!
save the coffee grinds for growing mushrooms
Plant your seeds on new Year's Eve.
Airing cupboard to begin with, until you have seedlings
then small pots on windowsill
then larger pots on windowsill
only put outside when there's no chance of frost
put into large pots and feed like a tomato plant
Reap!
You could do competition by circumference x weight = winner as bonnets are very variable shapes. If you grow a couple of bonnets then remove all fruit aside from one plant, this allows the plant to make one fruit only into a monster. Numex are bushy and very heavily laden, most chillis on plant might be a good one here.
Good luck
All done!
Went for a green house/water bottle vibe...worth putting it on the radiator?
Now we wait...
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Transferred to a larger tub
if the competition is about heat do not transfer them to larger pots. keep the pots small, it makes them hotter.
I grew a Trinidad moruga (sp?) scorpion this year, hottest in the world by all accounts. i got one chill off the plat, it was tiny, and it destroyed me for 30 minutes. never again.
If you wish to develop a stronger/hotter terpenoid flavour in the fruits then stressing the plant out when it has laid down pods will help, water sparingly when visibly wilting, squeezing the stem between fingers, pinching out growing tips, withholding fertiliser (only use a phosphorous rich solution when flowering) etc will all produce a richer flavour as the plant will believe it is under attack and arm the fruits with more capsaicin to deter predators
[i] ...it has laid down pods[/i]
Wassat mean?
Chilli Focus has landed in my office...to use or not to use!
[i]Wassat mean?[/i]
When the fruits start to appear