Our chilli harvest has been excellent this year. We grew two varieties, Iranian Round and Jalapeno. In total we had 5 plants and they have given us enough chillies to last us all year.
We store all our chillies in the freezer. This is by far the easiest way as you just put the whole chillies in a freezer bag, put them in the freezer and that’s it. When we want to use them we just chop them from frozen. Easy with the nice long jalapeno but a little trickier with the round ones which just seem to roll away from the knife! The japapeno are also called “the pizza chilli”. They have a great flavour but are not too fiery and so can be left in quite large pieces (like on pizzas!). Our Iranian Round are somewhat hotter and we tend to chop those a lot more finely. We also leave the seeds in as that gives a bit more heat too.
If you’ve got a greenhouse, sunny windowsill, or a sheltered sunny spot in your garden, and you like chillies, then they are well worth growing. Just two or three plants will give you enough chillies to last you all year, and will be much cheaper than buying them from the shops.
Chilli Bonanza
Beautiful Chilli Peppers
Our chilli plants are covered in lots of red chillies. We’ve grown them in the greenhouse, where they get plenty of warmth and light, which has helped them to ripen. One of our plants was so laden with chillis that they actually broke the stem!
We’re growing two types of chilli this year, Jalapeno . . .
and Iranian Round (from the Real Seed Catalogue).
We’ve got 5 plants altogether and the chillies they have produced will keep us going all year. We freeze our chillies whole. Just pick them off the plant and put them in a polythene bag. Nothing could be simpler. They don’t stick because the skins are dry, and when we need one we just take it out and chop whilst it’s still frozen. They are one of the few vegetables (tomatoes are another one) that don’t need any preparation before you freeze them. Golden!
Greenhouse Jumble
I just love greenhouses and polytunnels. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but I think they are magical. We’ve been lucky in that each house we’ve moved into has had a greenhouse left behind and we’ve made good use of each one. A couple of years ago, we bought a greenhouse and we absolutely love it! When I went to pick some salad the other day, it struck me how much was ‘going on’ in there…so took a piccy. Later in the season it’ll look very different.
So what’s what?
1. Some radishes that I sowed in Early February for an early spring treat!
2. Strawberry runners that Emma found had rooted in our fruit cage…dug up and popped in pots
3. An old washing tub, now used for compost – convenient and warms the soil
4. Some Begonias and Dahlias for the sitting area in front of the greenhouse (the ‘admire your hard work’ spot)
5. Carrots planted in a container
6. Some bamboo canes from last year’s runner beans
7. Spare raspberry canes (malling admiral I think) that we’re growing in pots
8. The netting system I used last year for growing cucumbers – worked a treat!
9. Buckets of water (from water butts) warming for general greenhouse use
10. Right in the corner…some gnome thing that one of the kids got as a present
11. My perpetual salad system…8 trays (4 on top and 4 below). I’ll plant one tray per week rolling
12. Some chilli, aubergine and capsicum plants
13. A thermometer that’s partly broken (measures lowest but not highest temperature)
14. Outside the greenhouse -Water butts that come from the greenhouse
15. Tommies – We’re growing a few different varieties this year. Harbinger, latah, sungold and sungella
I wonder if other people’s greenhouses are such a jumble as ours at the moment?
An Exploratory Dig in the Broad Bean Pots
There are parts of my character that fit well with gardening and others that fit well with a little push (shove). Waiting for things to happen (some call it patience) isn’t something I’m very good at and waiting for the broad beans to emerge has just got too much for me. So I’ve just had a little exploratory dig in the pots and am pleased to be able to report, even before they’ve broken the surface, that they are definitely growing. So, I expect a few of them to pop up over the next week.
Meanwhile, as if trying to teach me to enjoy ‘waiting for things to happen’, the chilies continue to play their roulette game of ‘Will I germinate or not?’ and we still have 5 out of the 6 in our airing cupboard. Oh, that reminds me, maybe a little more water might help.
Chillies are slow to germinate
Most vegetable seeds take about 7-10 days to germinate and push through the soil. This is rather handy because, in that short space of time, you know whether you’ve succeeded or whether the mini-drought they went through (er-hum) has scuppered your chances. However chilies can take up to 21 days to germinate – Yikes! On top of this, chilies require a long growing season and so benefit from an early sowing…so an additional 21 days if you do need to re-sow isn’t welcome.
So, my tip of the day, especially when dealing with chillies is…try to ensure they don’t suffer a drought, even a mini one.
PS We had one chilli pop up in only a week. That’s so fast that I’ll keep a suspicious eye on it. I’m wondering if somehow a capsicum seed has managed to stow-away in the chilli packets.
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