Hi every1

[jonnydotcom]

Hi all

my names Jon and I'm an alcoholic, opps sorry wrong site

Only kidding.

I found this site while trying to find out the best ways to dry chilli's as i have just caught the gardening bug proper. it all started when i was bought some Jalape�o chilli seeds by a friend and i grow them on the kitchen window.

now i have a 6x4 greenhouse with about 7 different variety's of chilli's(and yes i know your not meant to keep more than 1 together because of cross pollination but there for personal use and i ain't got the space for more house's)

so Hello everyone

[coomber]

Hello, welcome to the vine
are you growing anything other than chillies

[Flummery]

Hi Jon. It doesn't matter about cross-pollination for your chillies if you are just going to eat them. It only matters if you keep the seed to sow next year. If you buy (or keep some in the packet) each year there's no problem. Have you got any taste buds left?

[ailsasyl]

hi Jon and welcome to the vine
Are yo growing anything else??

[lainey lou]

Hi jonny, welcome to the vine. This growing lark really gets ya doesn't it?!

[lumpyjumper]

Chillies, fab!!! Unfortunately I'd be the only one in my family to eat them

Welcome to the vine..

[Stacey Steve]

Jonny, if you are still looking for a way of drying your chillies you might like to look into a dehydrator, cheapest I've found is from Westfalia

Food Dehydrator from Westfalia at our Kitchen inside the Household shop

They have even reduced the price since we bought ours and it works a treat

[Rac]

hi jon, hahaha on the joke, i am new too, lets hope we learn lots, seem a lot of great advice is out there:-)

[jonnydotcom]

Cheers for the welcome every1 nice to find another forum to lose myself in.

as for stuff I'm growing yeah pretty much all chilli's i do have 1 tomato plant for the other-half and a melon plant thats the kids oh yeah a couple bell pepper plants as well but my main crop is chilli's.

I've got 5 jalape�o, 5 habanero, 5 scotch bonnet, 1 red cherry, 1 Hungarian hot wax, 5 bolivian rainbow, 2 birds eye and 15 Naga's growing at the moment all from seed.

I'm well pleased because i am normally useless at growing things

[jonnydotcom]

Jonny, if you are still looking for a way of drying your chillies you might like to look into a dehydrator, cheapest I've found is from Westfalia

Food Dehydrator from Westfalia at our Kitchen inside the Household shop

They have even reduced the price since we bought ours and it works a treat

Quick question.
how big are the trays in the dehydrator you cant really tell from the picture.

cheers
jon

[Stacey Steve]

Approx 12 inches diameter

[jonnydotcom]

What about depth
could i put a full chili in and dry it or do i have to cut them in half

[lesalou]

Hi
I bought an amazing chilli plant last year from Gardeners World Live called "ring of fire" my partner only wanted it for the name - in his wisdom he decided to de frost one in the microwave when making a curry. well i'm sure you can guess the rest. it exploded, my son had an asthma attack and he ended up cooking the curry with a teatowel tied round his face.
This year i've gone for a Bangalore Torpedo (?)
Good luck with the plants

[Stacey Steve]

They are 1 inch deep.

You should have no trouble putting in a whole chilli.

The kids bought a book (some say the bible) about dehydrating by Mary Bell.

The recomendation for most things that are dense, like strawberries is about 5mm thick but then again you can dry halves of toms.

I suppose it's a case of the thicker and denser the item, the longer it's going to take.

OH filled the thing up with about 4 pounds of strawberries yesterday and it took just over 6 hours.

Now this is a 250 watt unit so I make that 1.5 Kwh and I think I pay about 19p per Kwh so that works out at about 30p to do the drying.

[jonnydotcom]

just ordered one.
cheers,