Chillies - growing and overwintering 2017

[the big lebowski]

hi jacks i have heard that if you put your hand about level with the top of the plant if your hand feels uncomfortable from the heat then raise it abit ,cheers

[Scoot]

A couple of pics of my little chillies. Only wanting to grow 1 variety of each (14 varieties once they've all germinated) but have sowed 2 or 3 of each.

[Ms-T]

Looking good there Scoot.

[Fangio]

Chillies still fruiting - can I prune them plus other Qs

I started some Aji Limon and Super Chilli plants from seed last January, they began giving me chillies in the summer and have continued all through autumn and winter and are still flowering and fruiting. Ive got a freezer full of chillis.
They sit in a conservatory above radiators , get watered every day and fed most weeks.
My wife is getting annoyed at the size of them because they're blocking out the light so wondered if I could/should trim them back ( or replace the wife?), and if so is there anything i should know about trimming them? any advice much appreciated, thanks

[Newbiegrower1970]

I've managed to keep 5 chillies and one sweet pepper plant alive over the winter.

And here are this year's babies

[Chris11]

Update: Have done most of my sowing now, so waiting to see what else germinates. I've had another variety pop up today, a Paper Lantern.

With cold temperatures and no additional lighting, I'm only getting slow growth at this stage. Grow list of surviving varieties so far:

Barancio
Burkina Yellow
Cayenne
Cheyenne F1
Congo Trinidad Yellow
Joe's Long Cayenne
Numex Sandia
Numex Twilight x Cayenne F2
Orange Habanero
Paper Lantern
Piccante Calabrese
Scotch Bonnet MoA Yellow
Serrano
Space HJ10 Afterglow
Thai Orange Large

Plus have some 2016 plants in the house for potential overwintering. Too soon to be sure, but so far these look like they might still be surviving:

Burkina Yellow
Cayenne Large Red Thick
Elysium Lantern F1
Golden Cayenne
Orange Habanero
Pink Habanero

Plus a Turbo Alberto cross. One plant dropped leaves and died after the first hard frost, but this one survived several hard frosts in the cold greenhouse before I decided it had done more than enough to prove it wanted to survive
I then brought it indoors, and it's already growing new leaves.

[JusPotterinTim]

Looking at all your grow light photos etc they seen to be very close to the top of the plant. How many cm away from them . This may be why mine is growing slower!!!

jacks, I aim for the tops of the plants to be 2cm, or a bit more from the lights, to give them as much light as possible. Do you have T5 HO bulbs ? I wouldn't recommend any other weaker fluorescents (T8, T12) , other than for getting seedlings started for a few weeks, or for keeping plants ticking over in winter (without decent growth), or to ADD to a good level of sunlight through a window.

At 2cm distance the top leaves of my plants will get say 35,000 lux, about 1/3 as much as strong sunlight (although plants don't use light from cool white fluorescents as efficiently, it's about 75% the equivalent to sun for the same lux level). If I measure the light strength 10cm further down it's about 20,000 lux, so that's only about 60% as strong as at 2cm away. If I had a high powered monster of a light (e.g. metal halide or HPS), it wouldn't be so critical, the drop off is a lot less with those.

The leaves can sit about 1cm from the lights without burning, but at this distance it's risky as they can easily grow a bit overnight, or change their angle a bit, and, touch the bulb and scorch, which makes them look a bit tatty. For very young seedlings I'd keep a minimum distance of say 15cm for the first week after germinating and appearing, and then 10cm for a couple of weeks after that, until there are some good sized true leaves, then they'd go right up to 2cm away. If you get purpling of young seedlings it means they're getting a tan, and the lights are probably a bit close. It happens slowly so there's plenty of time to move them further away from the light.

[Chris11]

I started some Aji Limon and Super Chilli plants from seed last January, they began giving me chillies in the summer and have continued all through autumn and winter and are still flowering and fruiting. Ive got a freezer full of chillis.
They sit in a conservatory above radiators , get watered every day and fed most weeks.
My wife is getting annoyed at the size of them because they're blocking out the light so wondered if I could/should trim them back ( or replace the wife?), and if so is there anything i should know about trimming them? any advice much appreciated, thanks

Yes, you can certainly prune them back a bit and re-shape them if you want to. Although if the wife enjoys eating the chillies too, you might ask her to explain what else she needs the light for, if it's currently put to good use for the chilli plants

Good to see that your growing conditions are giving the plants a chance to demonstrate their true perennial nature.

[JusPotterinTim]

I'm growing loads of chillies....

Nice selection there Chris, you really are finding the 'toughies' with them out in the greenhouse.

I'm planning to put mine out at the start of next month, but I'm using heaters to guarantee at least 10C overnight - I've got wireless thermometers in the growhouses so I can bring them in if it gets very cold. They'll all be growing pods at the time I expect, so I think 10C absolute minimum is going to be good for them - it dropped to about 5C one night last October when my Jalapeno was growing young pods, and they all got stunted and were about half their normal length. Still tasty though!

[Ms-T]

I prune them back and re-shape them .its part of the fun
I have 2 Turbo Alberto cross think they are the same ones? mine are in the g/h, one in a flyaway warp up with bubble warp.the other one pot was to big to go into the flyaway so its just warped and in the g/h..

[Ms-T]

Well remember the AeroGarden would you like to see how they are doing




Biquinho Yellow

Goronong yellow

Cajamarca.

[JusPotterinTim]

hi jacks i have heard that if you put your hand about level with the top of the plant if your hand feels uncomfortable from the heat then raise it abit ,cheers

Agree on that Big L (but being a bit cautious when they're very young, they seem to need an indoor 'hardening off' to get used to strong light).

[Small pumpkin]

Last lot of chillies sown
Jalapeño early
Jalapeño hot
Holy mole

And sown my sweet peppers
lamuyo
Palermo

Germination has been good so far only 3 no shows ( but still not given up )
Habanero red
Vietnamese tear jerker
Delhi hot

[Tripmeup]

I still am no shows on Habanero White and chocolate... Likewise the Turbo Cross, the Pulla red and Bailey Numex Piquin don't seem to want to appear 😑

[Mitzi]

Final batch of seeds went in the propagator at the weekend. The three on the right are old ones from the previous sowing. This is their last chance, they have until everything else germinates and then they are going in the bin.



Yesterday one of the Chenzo seeds started to sprout, but I haven't got a pic. I've put it in a Jiffy 7 today.

Also yesterday I noticed some yellowing of the older leaves on the Reapers (top right and bottom left leaves):



I'm taking this as a sign that the nutes in the compost are exhausted so I've fed with some Chilli Focus.