chillies not hot

[nikkijy]

Gutted..... have just picked some of my chillies. I picked some green to promote more flowering and decided to have chilli and garlic pork. thought i better check how hot they were so bravely bit into one. waiting for the burn..... nothing. my husband saved the seeds last year, was this wrong!!

[Two_Sheds]

Not all chillies are hot.
What variety were they?

[smallblueplanet]

Are they 'ripe' when green or red? Also the heat of chillies is often affected by their environment - how much sun have they had?

[lzyjo]

Perhaps they were a hybrid variety? As smallblueplanet said, the hotness of chillies is affected by the climate, a hot variety will be less hot in a cooler climate and more hot in a warmer climate.

[Kristen]

"my husband saved the seeds last year, was this wrong!!"

If the original was an F1 variety you are unlikely to get saved seed to "come true"

[SarzWix]

Okay, panic not. Firstly, chillis on the same plant can vary in heat - last year my OH picked 2 chillis from the same plant, one was very mild, the other blew his socks off! This is more likely with saved seeds we've found, as they haven't been bred for perfect, identical performance. Secondly, the blossom end (bottom) of the chilli is usually milder than the stalk end.
And no, saving your own seed isn't 'wrong', it's a great thing to do. My OH and his friend have been saving seed for a couple of years of a 'mystery' chilli which they are convinced they 'bred' themselves... And we save seed of loads of others such as Cherry Bombs, Scotch Bonnets etc, and they usually do really well.

[janeyo]

Sorry to hijack, but I have got wee chillis on my plants and don't know when I am meant to pick them... is it best to wait til they go red? Do they all turn from green to something else? One is anaheim and the other I can't remember, oops, but it was a freebie from a mag so a run of the mill type I expect.

How long do they store after picking without doiing something with them? I was hoping to bottle some in oil but am about to rip the kitchen out so that may now not be possible (great planning on my part lol)

Thanks Janeyo

[SarzWix]

Janeyo, you can pick them green or red, no worries. For cooking with, they freeze whole really well - no good for putting in oil then though, as they would disintigrate once defrosted.

[nikkijy]

will keep optimistic

Sorry have no idea what variety they are. saved seed from two different chilli so i'll keep optimistic that they get hotter and the other batch is hotter still. Weather here hasn't been that great but at least ive been able to get in the greenhouse all day to weed and tidy up. 'Is it wrong to save the seeds' was the wrong thing to say, what i really meant was.. will it weaken the strain sort of thing and should i not save the seeds this year?

[SarzWix]

If they end up performing the way you want them to, then save the seeds. If they don't, don't