Growing chillies

[rockfisherman]

Hi raiders

I've always liked spicy food, but more so over the last 6 months, I've been loving chillies, the flavour, the burn and not to mention the health benefits assisiated with eating chillies.

Health benefits:

http://www.chilli-willy.com/chilli-health-benefits/

Growing chillies:

http://www.chillies-down-under.com/growing-chillies-pt1.html

So I wanted to get into growing my own, but after reading about the array of potential problems, have been slightly discouraged.

Have any Raiders out there got experience growing chillies? I'm

Just curious about the frequency of problems and if they really require a lot of attention.

Fishingphase

[squizzytaylor]

Ive got a couple of pots on my balcony and they have been great, they stop bearing fruit over winter but are very hardy over spring summer and autumn. Can expect a dozen or so chillis per week, these suckers are pretty hot, the variety is called nelly Kelly and came from a major hardware chain.

Cheers

Geoff

[luderick -angler]

Hey fishingphase,

I grow three varieties habanero, jalapeno and firecrackers. To get them to grow first season buy seedlings once you have mature fruit keep the seeds and dry them to gethem tpo germinate get one of the seed germination kits with the heat pads, good seedling mix. soak the seeds for 24 hours in warm water then seed the trays and put them on the heat mats do this in august once you get seedlings (chillis are notoriously hard to germinate!) putthem in little pots and keep inside in a warm place till October once they are big enough you need to take them outside and place in the sun for 3 - 4 hours a day then bring them in this strengthens the seedling and allows it to cope wit hdirect sunlight as a mature plant. Feed them seasol fertilizer and calcium feed. After a month of this plant them in rows in your garden or in a largish pot say 50 - 70cm circumfrence.

If you want some mature fruit give me a yell I have loads of mature habaneros, the best seeds come from large mature ripe fruit and will have more chance of germinating.

Cheers and hope this helps

Edited April 16, 2012 by luderick -angler

[bennoz]

ive got half a dozen varieties growing in pots on the balcony

use an old egg container, and fill it up with seed starter mix. plant the seeds and keep them warm. they take anywhere from 2-6weeks to germinate.

once they are getting too big for the egg carton, transfer them to larger pots and start exposing them to sunlight.

when they get too big again, transfer them to larger pots and put them outside

i can send you some seeds of trinidad scorpions if you like - these things WILL knock your socks off. rated at 1.1mill scoville units.

[luderick -angler]

Bennoz,

you got any Scotch bonnets? been after a few for a while!

[rockfisherman]

Luderick angler

Do segregate your different chilli plants, I read cross pollination is very common, so people frequently end up with hybrids, well a lot of the stuff bought off the shelf these days has been cross pollinated to produce a hybrid with desirable traits, but cross pollination can occur even if the plants are within the vicinity of each other, ie 3 houses down the road.

[luderick -angler]

Fishingphase,

I keep my plants all together in the hope they do cross pollinate for next year a jalpeno/habanero cross will be interesting! PM sent as well

[bennoz]

no bonnets sry

this is where i get my seeds from - they have em (and pretty much all else too)

http://www.thehippyseedcompany.com/

[luderick -angler]

Hey Bennoz,

I just checked out chilibank ordering soon! Will let you know how they go!

http://www.chilliseedbank.com.au/

Edited April 17, 2012 by luderick -angler

[bennoz]

nice 1

my fav is the fatali - although i dont have any more seeds plant died while i was OS

[luderick -angler]

I take it you like your chillis hot huh!!!!!

[Twinfisher 4.9]

My all time favourite - I do like really hot - is the Trinidad Scorpion. Ugly looking sucker but is soooo potent. Once had a guest for lunch who boasted about his tolerance to chilli heat - well a tiny sliver or two changed his mind! You can grow them from seeds and are well worth the effort, you won't want anything else after a Trinidad!

Steve

[rockfisherman]

My all time favourite - I do like really hot - is the Trinidad Scorpion. Ugly looking sucker but is soooo potent. Once had a guest for lunch who boasted about his tolerance to chilli heat - well a tiny sliver or two changed his mind! You can grow them from seeds and are well worth the effort, you won't want anything else after a Trinidad!

Steve

The Trinidad scorpion is up there when it comes to burn. I've never had one but I'll take your word for it that they're hot..... I've been been enjoying a steady flow of Thai chillies from mums back yard that she has growing next to the herb garden, and there's some interesting flavours coming out I'll tell ya.

Harry

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[LeoB]

G'day

My biggest piece of advice is get a worm farm. Since I've started pouring worm juice on my garden weekly, my chillies, and the rest of my veggies are going great.

Also once your chillis start fruiting cut down the water and you trick the plant into growing more seeds, as they think they are going to starve.

Cheers Leo

[Guest Aussie007]

i had some growing a few years ago indoors under indoor lighting, started them out under LED lights than changed to a small 250watt HPS light than eventually moved them outside

i didnt bother with soil went strait for coconut husk without food i used hydroponic dutch master nutrients and the plants flourished untill one of my dogs ripped out all my plants, i should have kept them indoors growing

[adkel53]

Gazza - you sure you were only growing chillies!!

I am a keen vegie gardener and find them easy to grow. Lots of good advice above. If you live in a frost-free area the bushes should survive the winter but with little or no fruit. Give them a good prune in spring, fertilise them and they should start to produce fruit again.

Interestingly, Eastern Rosellas are not put off by their heat as I sometimes need to net mine or they eat the entire crop. Fruit fly may also attack them and spoil the fruit.

Here is a fact sheet about growing them: http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1059558.htm

By the way, chilli plants are self-pollinating and hence very unlikely to produce hybrids unless you manually transfer the pollen from one plant to another using a cotton bud or small brush. I never see insects like bees on my chilli flowers (as with tomatoes, potatoes and egg plants which belong to the same plant family)- they don't produce nectar to attract bees like cross pollinated plants do.

[Guest Aussie007]

was growing chilli,tomato and lettiuce, kel wish i had a garden bed i'd have a nice veggie patch but my dogs find there way into anything and they'll just rip it all apart, i love growing veggies in hydroponics but its a bit hard outdoors and running the power out there especially when it rains thats why i do without all the hassle and grow indoors and there are hardly and pest problems and no slugs eating the seedlings lol, growing indoors u have total control over the environment the only down side is its a fire hazard

[adkel53]

A HOT post - love the irony!

Gazza, I think I might have slipped one through to the keeper here. Some people grow lots of funny things hydroponically!!

Glad to see you are growing lots of edibles hydroponically. Have you heard of wicking boxes? They are a great alternative on balconies, verandahs etc and less work to maintain. Check them out here:

http://www.mvcc.vic.gov.au/~/media/Files/ForResidents/Environment/My%20Smart%20Gardens/Make%20a%20wicking%20planter%20box%20workshop%20notes.pdf

I credit my grandfather with inspiring me to grow food plants. He had a great garden and I always enjoyed helping him in it. My two daughters have inherited the "green thumb" gene and my daughter-in-law has absorbed it too.

I taught high school Agriculture for 37 years and for that entire time my students had vegetable gardens at the school farm. Most loved taking fresh vegies home but some, sadly, refused to do so saying that if they did they would be forced to eat them! Not much hope of inspiring them. Many, I know, developed gardens at home and hopefully I have infected them for life!

[Guest Aussie007]

cant really grow anything on my veranda kel as my backyard is shaded by neighbours gumtrees and my house is facing east west back yard is in the east and only gets shaded direct sunlight for a couple of hours, the chillis i had were put out along my fence but no way of building anything around them the dogs would just dig under it or if i was to build a NFT system they little english staffy would jump up onto it

i dont have any veggies growing indoor atm could do without the worry of a fire so im waiting for the LED grow light manufacturers to nail the right light spectrum so i can grow under LED lights as there is next to no heat there not a danger of my house burning down while im not home

i started a hurticulture cert III course at curry curry NSW tafe some years ago but couldnt stick it out just couldnt focus as it was a tafe course from home before they changed all the rules and it now has to be done as an apprenticeship

[Jocler]

I grow a lot of my own vegies, including chillies. I also have chooks for fresh eggs and used this to set up my own permaculture setup.........if anyone wants eggs during the season let me know, I accrue about 3 dozen eggs per day from my freeranging flock and my workmates can only take so many..

Anyway, I am also a keen bbq'er and smoker etc and in my travels looking for ingredients I came across this place. (I was hunting for pinto beans to make the obligatory American style beans you see in all the westerns)

http://www.fireworksfoods.com.au/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.browse&category_id=304&Itemid=53

Although it is mainly mexican foods they have a good range of hot sauces and also a good listing of chilli seeds for sale,

J

[Paikea]

Mine grow in pots on our North facing veranda. They thrive on neglect!

Cheers

Paikea

PS; have seen Joclers garden and chook pen, sooo envious of the size of his land and the livestock. Could run a small herd of Buffalo and have room left for an Alpaca farm. ( I joke only a little, he has a great set up.) and John, I haven't forgotten our fishing trip, been to bloody cold but as soon as it warms up expect a call from me.

[Jocler]

Paikea,

I am looking forward to it, anytime. How did the smoker go?

J

[Paikea]

Haven't had a chance to try it yet. No fish that suit, (Taylor or Slimeys) but am looking forward to using it as soon as I can. Will let you know when I do.

Cheers

Paikea

[antonywardle]

our chilli is out in the rose garden

good northern sun. my wife absolutely

attacks it and prunes it hard and it

doesn't die and produces a heap of chillis

I see the common garden snail on them sometimes so the

heat doesn't put them off either

[tuffy]

Save yourself the trouble of germinating the chilli seeds. It's a lot easier to go to Bunnings and buy the seedlings. They are only a few dollars each and just stick them in the ground. Do not water too much and the more sun the better. I've grown jalapeno, habaneros (very hot) firecrackers, thai chillis and some orange coloured ones about a big a your little finger. Ended up giving most away because the crops were so prolific. Definitely a summertime crop though, they start dying off around June. Still got a heap frozen in Ziploc bags to tide me over winter.

Cheers and hot times to all !

Tuffy