Sorry if this has been aksed before - I have searched google for similar
posts but nothing has come up - sorry for missing anything that should have.

I recently bought a mixed variety pack of chilli seeds from Mr Fothergills
online. The seeds have germinated in a cheapo propogator and are now about
2-3 inches tall. I have thinned off some of the weeker looking ones and now
have about 6 seedlings sitting next to a big set of bays doors in my
third-floor flat.

My question is this: where do I go from here !! I plan to repot them into 6"
pots - will they be OK left to grow on the windowsil ?? Also, do I need to
do any assisted polination once the flowers appear - I dont plan on letting
too many bees into the flat so will I have to do this myself in order to get
fruit ?? If so, how ?!

Any answers to these questions, and/or general tips for growing these
beauties will be much appreciated !

Cheers.

"sprocket" wrote in message
...
Sorry if this has been aksed before - I have searched google for similar
posts but nothing has come up - sorry for missing anything that should
have.

I recently bought a mixed variety pack of chilli seeds from Mr Fothergills
online. The seeds have germinated in a cheapo propogator and are now about
Any answers to these questions, and/or general tips for growing these
beauties will be much appreciated !

I think I grew something similar last year so some simple pointers:

When they have a few more leaves ( 4 pairs ) pinch the tips out so that the
plant bushes up. If it gets too tall in a pot it'll just fall over later
especially if some of the chilli varieties are the larger ones for
roasting/stuffing. They like lots of heat and light so the windowsill is
good if it gets good sun. Turn the plants regularly. Feed with tomato feed
once the chillis/peppers have started to form. If they're anything like
mine, they seemed to set fruit without any intervention. Keep them watered
well to get larger fruits. Finally, you can harvest them when green to get
more peppers. If you wait until they go red they aren't hotter but they'll
inhibit the production of more flowers and fruit.

Martin

Thanks for the tips. What do people mean, exactly, when they say pinch the
tips for better bushyness ?? I've seen this said a few times but was never
quite sure exactly what was meant...


"Martin Sykes" wrote in message
...
"sprocket" wrote in message
...
Sorry if this has been aksed before - I have searched google for similar
posts but nothing has come up - sorry for missing anything that should
have.

I recently bought a mixed variety pack of chilli seeds from Mr
Fothergills
online. The seeds have germinated in a cheapo propogator and are now
about
Any answers to these questions, and/or general tips for growing these
beauties will be much appreciated !

I think I grew something similar last year so some simple pointers:

When they have a few more leaves ( 4 pairs ) pinch the tips out so that
the
plant bushes up. If it gets too tall in a pot it'll just fall over later
especially if some of the chilli varieties are the larger ones for
roasting/stuffing. They like lots of heat and light so the windowsill is
good if it gets good sun. Turn the plants regularly. Feed with tomato feed
once the chillis/peppers have started to form. If they're anything like
mine, they seemed to set fruit without any intervention. Keep them watered
well to get larger fruits. Finally, you can harvest them when green to get
more peppers. If you wait until they go red they aren't hotter but they'll
inhibit the production of more flowers and fruit.

Martin

"sprocket" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the tips. What do people mean, exactly, when they say pinch the
tips for better bushyness ?? I've seen this said a few times but was never
quite sure exactly what was meant...

The tip of the plant ( where you can see the small new leaves forming ) is
where the growth is concentrated. By pinching the tip you can cut this bit
off. The plant then redirects its efforts to grow branches. If you look at
the base of each of the lower leaves where they join the main stem you can
sometimes see the pair of small leaves ready to start growing. They will
naturally start anyway when the main shoot is too tall and it is hard for
the plant to pump the fluids up that high but by pinching out the tip sooner
you start the branches sooner and you get a bushy plant. You can keep doing
this by pinching out the tips of the branches when they are 4 pairs of
leaves long as well but I wouldn't do this here because each time you do it
you also pinch off potential flowers/chillies. It then takes longer before
new flowers form and if they form too late then they won't have time to form
ripe chillies before the end of the summer.

Martin

thanks again !

"Martin Sykes" wrote in message
...
"sprocket" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the tips. What do people mean, exactly, when they say pinch
the
tips for better bushyness ?? I've seen this said a few times but was
never
quite sure exactly what was meant...

The tip of the plant ( where you can see the small new leaves forming ) is
where the growth is concentrated. By pinching the tip you can cut this bit
off. The plant then redirects its efforts to grow branches. If you look at
the base of each of the lower leaves where they join the main stem you can
sometimes see the pair of small leaves ready to start growing. They will
naturally start anyway when the main shoot is too tall and it is hard for
the plant to pump the fluids up that high but by pinching out the tip
sooner
you start the branches sooner and you get a bushy plant. You can keep
doing
this by pinching out the tips of the branches when they are 4 pairs of
leaves long as well but I wouldn't do this here because each time you do
it
you also pinch off potential flowers/chillies. It then takes longer before
new flowers form and if they form too late then they won't have time to
form
ripe chillies before the end of the summer.

Martin

On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 15:46:02 +0000, sprocket wrote:

I recently bought a mixed variety pack of chilli seeds from Mr Fothergills

do any assisted polination once the flowers appear - I dont plan on letting
too many bees into the flat so will I have to do this myself in order to get

Hi Sprocket,

Either you're early with your chillies or I'm late...

Anyhow - pollination, as your plants will be indoors, you will have to
pollinate the flowers yourself to get fruit. Worked for me last year!

You need a small soft paintbrush and a steady hand. When some flowers have
opened up fully, dip *dry* paintbrush fully into flower, wiggle round on
the bit in the middle of the flower, remove paintbrush, repeat action on
all reamining flowers, and return to the first flower and do it again.
Repeat at intervals as you get more flowers maturing. Be careful, I found
the flowers fell off quite easily! Pick the fruit when it has grwon to
size to encourage further flowers. You should be able to crop through to
September indoors.

HTH,

Sarah

I'm sure polinating the plant yourself won't hurt but I just left my chilli
to itself last year and I'm still eating the fruit !

It was the first edible plant I'd ever attempted to grow and it couldn't
have been easier. Great for the beginner

HTH

Jim

"Sarah Dale" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 15:46:02 +0000, sprocket wrote:

I recently bought a mixed variety pack of chilli seeds from Mr
Fothergills

do any assisted polination once the flowers appear - I dont plan on
letting
too many bees into the flat so will I have to do this myself in order to
get

Hi Sprocket,

Either you're early with your chillies or I'm late...

Anyhow - pollination, as your plants will be indoors, you will have to
pollinate the flowers yourself to get fruit. Worked for me last year!

You need a small soft paintbrush and a steady hand. When some flowers have
opened up fully, dip *dry* paintbrush fully into flower, wiggle round on
the bit in the middle of the flower, remove paintbrush, repeat action on
all reamining flowers, and return to the first flower and do it again.
Repeat at intervals as you get more flowers maturing. Be careful, I found
the flowers fell off quite easily! Pick the fruit when it has grwon to
size to encourage further flowers. You should be able to crop through to
September indoors.

HTH,

Sarah

Thanks for the tips - I've always wanted to be a bumble bee - they always
seem so happy, and get to wear a cool jumper all their lives !

"JimM" wrote in message
...
I'm sure polinating the plant yourself won't hurt but I just left my
chilli
to itself last year and I'm still eating the fruit !

It was the first edible plant I'd ever attempted to grow and it couldn't
have been easier. Great for the beginner

HTH

Jim

"Sarah Dale" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 15:46:02 +0000, sprocket wrote:

I recently bought a mixed variety pack of chilli seeds from Mr
Fothergills

do any assisted polination once the flowers appear - I dont plan on
letting
too many bees into the flat so will I have to do this myself in order
to
get

Hi Sprocket,

Either you're early with your chillies or I'm late...

Anyhow - pollination, as your plants will be indoors, you will have to
pollinate the flowers yourself to get fruit. Worked for me last year!

You need a small soft paintbrush and a steady hand. When some flowers
have
opened up fully, dip *dry* paintbrush fully into flower, wiggle round on
the bit in the middle of the flower, remove paintbrush, repeat action on
all reamining flowers, and return to the first flower and do it again.
Repeat at intervals as you get more flowers maturing. Be careful, I
found
the flowers fell off quite easily! Pick the fruit when it has grwon to
size to encourage further flowers. You should be able to crop through to
September indoors.

HTH,

Sarah

Heya, good to know there are other chilli-heads here in the UK - tend
to keep a low profile. I started growing chillis from seed last year,
from dried fruit in parrot feed! Simplicity itself, as has been said -
got something like 99% germination, and 100% of those survived to
flowering. I was quite pleased with that, as the climate we get here
in Scotland doesn't really suit capsicum breeds. Anyhow, I planted in
March last year, they started flowering mid September, and I was still
getting fruit through to December - I remember since I was forced into
throwing them out to make room for the Christmas tree!

I decided that wasn't ideal, so I planted this years batch at the
beginning of this month, and actually potted them on today, on their
first set of true leaves. I don't have a greenhouse or anything like
that, so theyre all sitting in 8in pots in a sunny window. Hopefully
they'll be fruiting during the very short period that can be classed
as summer, and so have some decent heat!

One breed I got seeds from on holiday got planted last June, and got
pinched out at about 2ft high about christmas time, is now covered in
flower buds, and plants that fruited last ear which I cut back are
actually in flower today! If fruit actually sets on them or not, I
have no idea, but I guess you have to play around to find what dates
and techniques suit your climate and growing season.

Re polination: the paint brush certainly works, with care, but they
also seem to manage by themselves quite well, seemingly with no insect
intervention either - strange I know, but there you go. I would say
that if going round the flowers with the brush, try to do a different
plant each time - some plants won't pollinate from other flowers on
the same plant. Having said that, the very first chilli to set last
year did so with no other flowers at all, on that plant or any other!

Have fun, and if anyone has any other tips/advice, I'm sure we all
would benefit.

Have fun, and if anyone has any other tips/advice, I'm sure we all
would benefit.

Well, I managed to overwinter a fairly large Apache Chilli plant this year.
Today, I've moved it to the plant-house and am now kicking it back to full
life after it's long sleep. It'll be interesting to see if / when it starts
producing chillies....

Best,
- h

Thanks for the info...
I thinned another few off last night and now have about 5 plants each with
at least 1 set of true leaves - the strongest has about 3. I'll be potting
them on very very soon into 8cm pots.
Fingers crossed I get some nice fruit !

"Dave Chalton" wrote in message
om...
Heya, good to know there are other chilli-heads here in the UK - tend
to keep a low profile. I started growing chillis from seed last year,
from dried fruit in parrot feed! Simplicity itself, as has been said -
got something like 99% germination, and 100% of those survived to
flowering. I was quite pleased with that, as the climate we get here
in Scotland doesn't really suit capsicum breeds. Anyhow, I planted in
March last year, they started flowering mid September, and I was still
getting fruit through to December - I remember since I was forced into
throwing them out to make room for the Christmas tree!

I decided that wasn't ideal, so I planted this years batch at the
beginning of this month, and actually potted them on today, on their
first set of true leaves. I don't have a greenhouse or anything like
that, so theyre all sitting in 8in pots in a sunny window. Hopefully
they'll be fruiting during the very short period that can be classed
as summer, and so have some decent heat!

One breed I got seeds from on holiday got planted last June, and got
pinched out at about 2ft high about christmas time, is now covered in
flower buds, and plants that fruited last ear which I cut back are
actually in flower today! If fruit actually sets on them or not, I
have no idea, but I guess you have to play around to find what dates
and techniques suit your climate and growing season.

Re polination: the paint brush certainly works, with care, but they
also seem to manage by themselves quite well, seemingly with no insect
intervention either - strange I know, but there you go. I would say
that if going round the flowers with the brush, try to do a different
plant each time - some plants won't pollinate from other flowers on
the same plant. Having said that, the very first chilli to set last
year did so with no other flowers at all, on that plant or any other!

Have fun, and if anyone has any other tips/advice, I'm sure we all
would benefit.

Hey all,
The plants that I overwintered, and were flowering as of the last post
have now set fruit, and this is only half-way through March! Fresh,
homegrown chillis for Easter, fingers crossed.
For anyone who's interested, I would recomend trying this, even if
only for a few of your plants growing this year - the extra effort
required to keep the plants going over the winter (essentially just
remeber to water them!) is more than balanced by having fruit setting
at the point where this years plants are still only 2-3 inches tall!
Plus, if you cut back the plants (I took them down to about 2feet, but
this will vary with the overall height of the plant), you will get the
plant forming secondary shoots from the leaf-bases, so you get better
spreading of the plant, at a lower height, resulting in greater
numbers of flowers with less plant to look after, or find space for.
Best of all worlds

Good luck with this years seedlings everyone.

Dave


"sprocket" wrote in message ...
Thanks for the info...
I thinned another few off last night and now have about 5 plants each with
at least 1 set of true leaves - the strongest has about 3. I'll be potting
them on very very soon into 8cm pots.
Fingers crossed I get some nice fruit !

In article ,
(Dave Chalton) writes:
| Hey all,
| The plants that I overwintered, and were flowering as of the last post
| have now set fruit, and this is only half-way through March! Fresh,
| homegrown chillis for Easter, fingers crossed.
| For anyone who's interested, I would recomend trying this, even if
| only for a few of your plants growing this year - the extra effort
| required to keep the plants going over the winter (essentially just
| remeber to water them!) is more than balanced by having fruit setting
| at the point where this years plants are still only 2-3 inches tall!
| Plus, if you cut back the plants (I took them down to about 2feet, but
| this will vary with the overall height of the plant), you will get the
| plant forming secondary shoots from the leaf-bases, so you get better
| spreading of the plant, at a lower height, resulting in greater
| numbers of flowers with less plant to look after, or find space for.
| Best of all worlds

Now, that's interesting. When did you cut them back? My experience
is that chillis that are left to bear fruit heavily and ripen them
start dropping leaves. I am not sure how well they would respond
if cut back late in the year after cropping, so I assume that you
need to pick and prune earlier.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679

Ahh, I should have been more explicit - the plants that are currently
producing in my window-sill, due to a combination of factors, did not
flower last year. In one case, this was due to planing the seeds far
too late for the Scottish growing season, since I only got them in
July of last year. That particlur plant I cut back in late October.
The other plants currently fruiting were planted in plenty of time,
but the flower-buds, when formed, dropped before opening. These plants
were cut back in the second week of November, and overwintered in a
coolish room with no direct sunlight. They were moved into a warmer,
sunnier environment mid-Feb, and promptly took off for the roof!

My appologies if this has mislead anyone, I should have put in more
detail. However I can report that one of the plants I greww last year
only produced one fruit off the first flower, subsequent buds dropping
off. I cut this plant back to just above this single fruit (which was
at the first node), and the plant regrew to the point that buds were
forming again soon after the first chile had ripened. I then got about
ten fruit off it before the weather turned too cold to let fruit set.
This one was NOT overwintered.

Currently with 46 plants, catch you all later.

Dave

(Nick Maclaren) wrote in message ...

Now, that's interesting. When did you cut them back? My experience
is that chillis that are left to bear fruit heavily and ripen them
start dropping leaves. I am not sure how well they would respond
if cut back late in the year after cropping, so I assume that you
need to pick and prune earlier.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679

Dave Chalton wrote:

Good luck with this years seedlings everyone.

Dave

My seeds have just germinated. When should I start planting them out? Or
should I plant them out at all? Keep 'em in pots? Keep 'em indoors?

The plant that the seeds came from was grown outside in Co. Cork which
has a more temperate climate than Dublin. Can't remember if it was
potted or in the ground.

Thanks for advice...

G

Dublin, Ireland.
--