hi all

canny now find the topic where all us chilli growers discussed and chatted about our spice growing. So thought i might revive it.

well this year i was lucky enough to overwinter 4 of my chilli plants with mixed results. my 2 jalopeno plants flourished and gave a great supply. these just sat on the kitchen windowsill and i would say were better than the first year. i took most at the green stage this year because i actually preffered them like this, whereas my first year growing it was nice to see jalapenos red and ripe, which id never seen in the shops before. 

my 2 scotch bonnet chillies were once again a disapointment, i actually think i chopped back far to much for overwintering as these are a slow growing and it was a poor summer these basically spent the whole growing season putting on leaf and height and only in august did they flower but it was far to late to start producing chillies.

ive binned them all now as i believe from reading that 2 years is realy the max for growing chillies, most do them as annuals.


Another thing i had a go at was growing coriander, and that was about the easiest and most prolific thing ive ever growing. heres how i did it.


1. got a large pot , one that sits outside could be anything from a bucket to a fancy clay pot.
2. filled with compost from a veg growing back at from garden shop
3. scattered in a pack of coriander seeds bought for 50p from morrisons
4. watered now and then if it was warm.


And the stuff grew and grew and grew. within a few weeks i had more than enough coriander to do me for all curry making all year. brilliant and saved a fortune. please try this next year.

next year im thinking of dorset nagas under lights and fenugreek

"next year im thinking of dorset nagas under lights and fenugreek"

Are you growing in soil or Hydro?
The Coriander looks like a good crop as well, easy too.
Gotta try chillies again, my last effort gave a great crop, but the wind blew it to bits outside in the garden.

Mine all did terribly. I was a bit late planting them and then they took an age to germinate, even then only about 2 out of 24 came up. I didn't get any shoots until July time so I binned them all. I'll try again next year and start earlier I think.

Dorset Naga's are reasonably easy to grow. I had a huge amount 2 years ago and they were just started on a window ledge then moved to the conservatory. Although they are clearly very hot I personally hated the pungent taste of them. They ruined everything I put them in so I decided to give them a miss in future.

My wife bought a mixed chilli variety packet of seeds
It was supposed to be birds eye, scotch bonnet and other varieties
They all got mixed up and cross pollinated, but we got very large results
The green chillies (given time) turn red
We grew them in the green house along with tomatoes
There are about thirty plants which all produced at least two chillies
I made some stuffed chillies yesterday (and also spinach pakora and onion bhajee)
these are the chillies

and here's the cooking