Baytree Garden Centre's advice on growing your own chilli peppers
Baytree Garden Centre's Mark Cox pens this week's Out in the Garden column on growing chilli peppers...
I have noticed that the mornings and the evenings do appear a little lighter especially on the drive to and from work.
So it’s still not outdoor gardening weather just yet but there are definitely jobs that can be tackled indoors. Whilst number one daughter was educating us on her favourite YouTube videos (other user generated video platforms are available).
One of her favourite clips featured two friends trying to eat increasingly hotter and hotter chilli peppers. Now I am not one to see people suffer but I think I was crying with laughter as much as they were crying in pain.
This started me thinking, we could be the next internet sensation and go viral! Number one daughter and I agreed to hold our own chilli eating contest that we would post on said video platform. However, to stand out from the competition we would grow our own chillis and film the sowing, propagation, harvesting and competitive consumption.
Fortunately, there is a large range of chilli peppers to choose from including the very mild sweet peppers all the way up to call the Fire Brigade (Please do not call the Fire Brigade) ones.
The heat of an individual chilli is measured in units called Scovilles, the greater the number the greater the chance of the inside of your mouth spontaneously combusting. The Carolina Reaper is the world’s hottest chilli measuring in at 2.2 million Scoville units. To put just how hot that chilli is most of us will have eaten a Jalapeno chilli and they clock in at between 2500 – 8000 Scovilles.
We have chosen to sow the following peppers - starting with the mildest to the hottest - Padron, Anaheim, Prairie Fire and finally Demon Red.
Sowing chilli seed indoors at this time of the year will require a couple of key items, including a heated propagator, seed compost and some vermiculite.
Into your heated propagator fill the tray with good quality specialist compost. Tap the tray gently to level and settle the compost.
I have decided to wear a pair of the current Mrs Cox’s rubber washing up gloves as PPE when sowing the actual seed - which I’ll attempt to sow in straight lines across the top of the compost.
To insulate the seeds - and to protect them from sudden changes in temperature - I’ll cover them with a thin layer of Vermiculite.
I’ll label each row with a plant marker before standing the whole tray in a saucer of water. When the compost begins to feel damp which, can take around 15 -20 minutes.
Once damp I’ll remove the tray from the water and place the tray back in the propagator and place it somewhere within the house where it will get plenty of natural light.
Over the coming few weeks I shall make sure that the compost inside the heated propagator never dries out and I’ll wait for the young chillis to reach around 5cm - that’s 2 inches in old money - in height before re-homing them in their own individual pot which again I’ll place somewhere warm and light.
As a cautionary tale, just remember to wash aforementioned rubber gloves after you have used them as, having just spent six hours in A&E with the present Mrs Cox so that her left eye could be washed and bathed with cooling solution after inadvertently rubbing her eye with said glove, I can say with some certainty that it will be a frosty few days within the Cox household.