Posted by Craig | Posted in allotment, chilli, chillies, wahaca | Posted on 13-03-2011
Tags: chilli, chillies, growing, tips, videos, wahaca
You’ll remember that last month, I gave you some tips about how to give your chilli seeds the best chance of germinating, and starting to grow into big healthy chilli plants.
So, you’ve planted your seeds, crossed everything that wasn’t painful, and all of your dreams have come true! Your chilli seeds have sprouted! But before you get ahead of yourself, just hold on a second, you’ve got to make sure you look after them well if you’re going to be rewarded with precious fruit.
When your chilli seedling has developed its second set of leaves, it is time to pot it on to another pot.
A mistake that some people make at this stage is to repot it straight into a huge pot, thinking that this ok. If you do this, all that will happen is that the chilli plant will grow its roots to fill the pot, and concentrate on producing foliage, but not the stems and flowers. If the plant does not produce flowers, then you will not get any chillies!
As a general rule of thumb, your chilli plant should be potted on to a larger pot when the roots start to appear out of the bottom of the current pot. Personally, I pot on plants from a 3 inch to a 5 inch and eventually to a 7 inch pot.
Keep an eye on your plant and water it if the compost looks as if it is drying out. Again, the idea is to keep the compost moist and not drenched. In the colder months, you will find you only have to water every two or three days, but as the weather heats up, you will probably need to water every day.
When flowers start to appear on the plant, you can give it a helping hand by adding liquid tomato feed to the water. It should be diluted at half of the recommended ratio for tomato plants.
Alternatively, you could use one of the feeds that are specifically designed to be used with chillies.
Also remember that your chilli plants also need light, and the more light that you can give them, the faster and stronger they will grow!
In the next installment, I’ll be giving you tips about how to make sure that all the flowers on your chilli plants turn into lovely chillies. See you then!
Achiltibuie Garden – Hydroponic Growing Kits
Dartmoor Chilli Farm
Greenhouse Sensation
I’ve grown chillies on a sunny window sill, they are mega-easy to grow and really fun when the little chillies start to form. I’ve never used a special feed, just added water!
I grew chillies last year but only got about 5 tiny chillies and then the plant died when I went away for a long weekend. So, I’m really glad I’ve found your blog as I am going to have another try this year.
First year I grew chilli’s I just used water and got decent results, but last year I went a bit mad and grew 15 plants in my greenhouse and this time used a special chilli feed… Wow, had amazing results and now have a freezer full of chilli that will last us a couple of years at this rate….
Yo Craig, the more chillies the better
Hi Craig,
Thanks for this series.
Just wondering – growing my first plants – 70 plants from a single shop-bought fruit. (Not kidding on number – no idea how easy to germinate them!). I did this because I was told I’d need another plant to help pollinisation. Not the case – my original plant pollinated itself.
My question is this – I have a gift plant from my sister which has borne fruit in its first year but is now too large for my window-sill. It’s in a 7 inch pot and about 3 feet high. It’s scraggy. The main stem is about 8 inches tall to the first branch.
CAN I cut this right back to the main stem, to encourage it to bush out a bit more?
I water about once a week, sometimes less with tap water. Every couple of weeks at most I also water with BabyBio – 3 drops or so per litre of water.
Look forward to any advice please. This is a gift plant and I’d love to keep it alive as long as possible.
Thanks,
David.
Hi Craig,i’ve kept the seeds from a pack of “hot hot hot” chillies i bought in Tesco last year.They are sealed in an envelope and i want to plant them next year and see if they will be as hot as when they came out the bag on 1st purchase?
Last year i planted from seed some indian chillies and they almost blew my head off lol.Ended up with 18 very bushy plants in total,and well over 400 gorgeous chillies (which i am still using today)