A few chillis outside

These guys are outside in the yard.

Szentesi Semi-Hot, Rocoto Canarios and Tequila Sunrise. The far left pot I'm not sure about.

Black Hungarian - First Open Flowers

What a great looking flower! This is the first one to open of all my plants. It's an indoor-only plant, on a south-facing bathroom window ledge.

Aphids attack!!

Little bastards. I noticed a couple on a kitchen windowsill plant, they probably got in through the window. I isolated it outside immediately and, as it wasn't near any others, forgot about it.

Next day I was checking my other indoor plants (downstairs) and spotted a couple more there! You know how this goes - once you see one, you see a thousand.

So, soapy water was sprayed liberally over all of them yesterday. I'm still waiting to see how it goes. There are still a few littl'uns running about the leaves, so they'll probably need more spraying.

Damn it.

Upstairs plants seem clear for now.

Moving outside, batch #1 (~77 days)

The first lot to go outside. A Thai Orange, a Szentesi and a Rocoto Canarios.

Note the wire to discourage our local cat that uses this wall as a shortcut!

After I put these guys out the weather turned grey and cold and very windy. I watched in horror from the kitchen window as they looked very cold and sad...

Some outside chillis at about 70 days

These guys were left outside right from the start, they've done quite well. They're a mystery chilli that I bought dried in a Thai shop some years ago.

Plants at 77 days

Some of the plants in the upstairs room.

Flowers!? At 67 days old!

Yikes, flowers are growing on several of my chillis, after less than 70 days!

I'm in the process of clipping them off, as most plants aren't even 1 foot tall yet and not bushy at all.


This shows the flowers forming on the Tequila Sunrise.

Black Hungarian Identity Image

At about 60 days, this shows details of plant as whole, stem and leaf of the 'Capsicum annum 'Black Hungarian' chilli.

A selection of chilli plants at 44 days

These are the average size of plants I have at the moment. Some much larger and some still only two-leaf seedlings.

Tequila Sunrise (~38 Days)

This 'Tequila Sunrise' (Capsicum annuum) chilli is the second largest of all the plants so far.

Hot Purple Prince (~ 38 Days)

This is the largest of the Hot Purple Princes (Salvia lyrata?), and the darkest of all the chilli plants so far.

Late developers

Finally, I have a sprouting Goat Horn, Jamaican Yellow, Szentesi and Indian Jwala.

All going well so far. Other, more developed seedlings have started to push out the first real leaves to replace the starter sets.

Seed tray view

I have now removed all the sprouted seedlings and moved them to a sunny windowsill. The still dormant or very young have been left in the propagator.

Leaf detail and muse

This chilli looks pretty healthy.

We've reached the stage now where half of the plants probably need to be taken out of the propagator and left in as much sunlight as possible. I think I'll have to cut up my seed trays to do this and leave the unsprouted chillis in there.

Also, I have some Fatali seeds beginning to sprout today. Still no Goat Horn though.

Water drops on stem

I just liked this image.

News: Chillis will make me thin too?

"Chilli extract may stop fat cell growth" (see link above)

Capsaicin, the compound that gives red pepper its heat, could inhibit the growth of fat cells, says a new laboratory study.

Oh good...

Hot Purple Prince (~4 days)

Another shot of the Hot Purple Prince. Apologies for the bad quality of this one - I was half awake and feeling a bit groggy this morning after a few beers last night!

I'll try and take some better images this weekend. I'd say about 50% of the seeds are now sprouted.

Um, we have a problem...

Yikes, what happened here? This 'Chinese' chilli is growing, but it's furry root system seems to be mostly out of the ground. It has also failed to release it's seed head.

Hot Purple Prince (2 days)

Check out that lilac colour!

Black Hungarian (3 days)

This is the first chilli (the Black Hungarian) to sprout that seems to have a coloured stem.