Almost exactly one year on from my last battle and the aphids are back. I was actually getting excited that small flower buds are starting to form on most of my plants when I noticed the familiar sight of lots of tiny green monsters gathering around the new growth shoots at the tops of the plants.

I’m not sure about anyone else but it seems that aphids seem to be more of a problem when growing plants indoors (in my case in the chilli house). Does anyone else think this is the case? I guess it would make sense because there is less access for predators to hunt them down.

Initially i thought the problem was only limited to a couple of plants however a careful inspection found the majority of plants to be infested. My scotch bonnet initially looked to be in the clear however when I tried to hand pollinate it i was gutted to see the inside of the two open flowers covered with aphids.

How I Treat Aphids

As soon as i spotted the problem i mixed up a few drops of washing up liquid with water and sprayed the infected areas. The theory is that aphids breathe through the pores in their stomachs and the liquid soap blocks these up.The soap washes off after a day or two and has no ill effect on your plants or chillies.

Anyway next morning i went out to check the plants and was pleased to see a ladybird happily munching away on the aphids. I mentioned last year about the benefits of encouraging natural predators can be to controlling pests like aphids.  Our new garden has a number of ladybird nest boxes dotted around and as a result plenty of ladybirds – the perfect natural aphid control!

Natural Aphid Control

After watching this little fella happily chewing on the aphids for about an hour i’m going to try to leave the plants outside (weather permitting) as much as possible until the problem has cleared up. Hopefully I caught them in time and not too much damage appears to have been done to my chilli plants.

Lady Bird Eating An Aphid

It was fascinating to watch this ladybird systematically eat all of the aphids on one of my cayenne plants. He even tried to have a nibble at me, flying off the plant and into my eye when i got the camera too close, only to land back on the plant to finish his meal after I had backed off a bit!

Searching For More Aphids

So be warned, keep a close eye on your plants as aphids can be quite tricky to spot and can cause a lot of damage in not much time at all and maybe consider grabbing a couple of ladybird nest boxes as a precaution..

I’ve mentioned a few times that i’ve recently moved house. In my old place I only had a small yeard, surrounded by tall houses and a large tree which meant that it was shaded for most of the day. As a result the growth rates of my chillies was slow and I relied on gro lights to get my plants started early and up to size early enough in the season to allow me to get fruit by late summer. To help keep the plants warm I used cheap mini greenhouses to maximize their growth.

Luckily I now have a bigger garden before which is south facing so it gets plenty of sun. In addition it has a summerhouse/conservatory which I have been able to take over a section of to house my plants. Needless to say the this has now become known as the chilli house. As it is double glazed it retains much more heat than the cheap greenhouses I used to use. To help avoid over heating I’m opening the windows and leaving the door open during the day and closing everything up at night time.

I’ve been amazed so far at the speed of growth the plants have put on with the extra light and heat they are getting within the chilli house. As a result, the plants are needing much more watering, usually twice a day when the weather is hot. Also the extra space will prove very useful at the end of the summer as I intend to try to over winter all of the plants I have grown this year.

It’s been a few weeks since I last posed and update on my chillies. After re-potting last time (to 6″ pots) in mid May many of the plants were suffering from drooping leaves. I put this down to a combination of hot daytime temperatures and the shock from re-potting. The Cayenne’s are all now about 14″ in height and are looking a bit leggy (though Cayenne’s tend not to be the bushiest of plants) so I have used bamboo canes to give them a bit of support.

The plants have continued to grow quickly despite the inconsistent weather. The only plants that are lacking a bit in growth are the orange habaneros and bhut jolokia, partly due to me not planting my seeds until the start of April. While the plants look very healthy they are only about 4″ tall. I’ve just re-potted these into 7″ pots and moved them to a more prominent position in the chilli house to maximize the amount of sun they get.

I’ve not grown as many varieties this year as I would have liked. Having recently moved house things have been a bit hectic this spring so I recently added a shop bought Scotch Bonnet (see below) plant to this years crop.

This shop bought scotch bonnet chilli plant looks really healthy after I re-potted it and is now just starting to flower so hopefully i’ll get some fruit to set in the next 2-3 weeks. As most of my chilli plants are living in a conservatory i will pollinate these plants by hand.

We’ve had a lot of questions from readers about if and when they should pot on their chilli plants and what pot sizes to use. This is a hard question to answer as much will depend on the stage of development of your plants and the condition they are grown in.

Many of our readers seem to be planting their chilli seeds in communal containers such as window boxes or large planters. While this is great for saving space during the germination and seedling stages it can cause problems later on. If left too long, the plants roots become entangled and when the plants need separating into larger pots you can run the risk of damaging plants. As a result panting chillies in single pots is best.

As I mention in my recent post about potting on I tend to pot my plants on every few weeks when the roots become visible out of the bottom of the pot. During a season i usually pot on about 4 times, gradually increasing the pot size up to about a maximum of 10-12″ depending on the variety.

Potting On Experiment

While the above potting on routine seems to have worked for me in the past, I’m not too sure if something else would work better to i’ve decided to run a  little experiment. I have taken 6 Cayenne plants, all the same size (roughly 15″ in height) that until now have been in 6″ pots. I will leave two in the same pots and have potted two into 82″ pots and two into 10″ pots and see how they fair in different pots.

I’ve heard one theory that states that potting into too large pots means the plant wastes energy decveloping it’s root system instead of flowering and producing chillies. Conversely other wisdom states that leaving in too small pots won’t allow the plant space to develop and produce to it’s full potential.

All0f the plants are the same size at the minute and none are flowering quite yet so I think now is the perfect time to run this test.

I’ll keep all six plants in the same conditions (in a conservatory that receives a good amount of light and has a small heater for chilly nights) and see how their growth is affected by their pot size. Of course not only with the rate of growth be interesting but the yield of Cayenne peppers I get form them. I’ll report back later in the season with the results!

Do you have any tips or interesting ideas about pot sizes for peppers? If so leave a comment below.

Now that the chilli growing season is well under way and we are all worrying about our young plants I thought i’d draw together a list of some of the accessories I have found useful for getting me through this next stage in the season.

Chilli Focus Pepper Plant food – This is the only plant food we are aware of that is formulated specifically for growiung chillies.

Lady Bird Nest Box – We are all in favour of natural remedies to problems with pests. It is well known that ladybirds are the most effective predator of aphids. These nest boxes provide ladybirds a perfect abode in your garden from which to launch attacks on any aphids eating their way through your chilli plants.

Nemaslug Nematodes – These are natural bacteria that are very effective at controlling slugs over the period of a few weeks. They are the cleanest, most environmentally friendly and effective solution we’ve found so far to control our slug problems.

Plastic 3 Tier Greenhouse – Whether you are taking your first steps into chilli growing (or gardening in general) or just planted too many seeds in March and need some more room these cheap greenhouses are well worth the £20 they cost!

Parasene Greenhouse Heater - We keep saying it but chilli plants need as much heat and light as you can give them. I am always amazed how much difference it makes having my plants in a heated greenhouse at night. Cool night time temperatures really can slow down growth.

The Complete Chilli Pepper Book – This is the “chilli bible”. A comprehensive guide to choosing, growing, preserving and cooking with chillies.

Chilli Jewelery – We often hear from our male readers about their other halves worried that they give more attention to their tender chilli plants than them. Well, with these great chilli bracelets you can redress that balance!

Is there anything that has helped your plants prosper this year? Let us know using the comment form below.

Last week I came back form work and found that virtually all of my chilli plants leaves were drooping. This can’t have been due to lack of light as the weather has been gloriously sunny recently.

Potential Causes of Drooping Leaves

1. Excess heat

The plants have been spending their days in a conservatory and with the very warm weather recently it was getting very hot in their during the day. Despite the high temperatures they had been well watered and the soil hadn’t dried out so I have ruled out lack of water. The shock of the high temperatures however may be a factor.

2. Re-potting

Quite often drooping leaves can be caused by the shock of re-potting. I re potted all of my plants just before this started to happen which probably explains their current drooping. When re-potting always try to minimize handling and damaging the roots.

3. Lack of nutrients

This can be an issue, particularly when the plants start flowering and fruiting. In such cases you can add a little tomato feed to their diet which should help give the plants the boost they need (I usually dilute it down to about half strength).

Curing Leaf Droop

Quite often the best plan is to simply let the chilli plants get used to their new environment. It is best to try to minimize any further stress to the plants. To do this move them to a warn, shady place out of direct sunlight.

Another suggestion I got from one of our twitter followers was to mist the plants with water. I’ve found this seems to have helped them recover too, though the problem is still persisting to some extent.

We’ve been getting so many great comments and discussion from some of our regular readers we thought it would be good to get to know some of them better. Each month we’ll be inviting a reader to write a guest post and answer a few questions, sharing some of their tips and advice with fellow chilli gardeners.

Junes Reader: Gordon Morrison aka ‘Gordzilla’ from Wrexham, North Wales.

What Varieties Are You Growing?

I’ve wanted to grow chilli’s for many years but never bothered up til this year. I bought some fresh Naga’s from worldofchillies.com which I cooked with but I also bought a variety pack of the world’s top ten hottest seeds. After forgetting about the seeds for 2 years I finally sowed them this spring into standard sized propagators and covered them with about 10mm of soil.

Gordon’s germination tip

I left my propagators on top of my central heating boiler for the furs few weeks to speed up germination.  Luckily it was still quite cold outside so the heating was on most of the time, giving my seeds a nice boost of heat. After a couple of weeks the first seedlings appeared so I let a little air in to them for about an hour at a time.

After a further 7 days most of the varieties had a germination rate of at least 7 out of 10 apart from the Naga’s which took an extra week. Oh and before planting the seeds I labeled up the propagator’s so as not to get confused over what’s growing.

What Conditions are you growing your chillies in?

After germination was complete I left the propagators on my kitchen window which faces south for a few days while I built my light box, using some MDF and a single 18w 600mm cool white tube. I put some of my seedlings into the light box on a 19 hour day cycle and they shot up!

After a week in the light box the plants were ready to pot on so I used the cardboard type of pot about 40mm across. I use these so that a good root system develops before the next stage, also when you pot on again you don’t take the plant out of the cardboard pot, you just re pot the lot. The roots will go through the cardboard pot and into the bigger pot, minimizing any disruption to the plants.

The windowsill plants needed about an extra week before they were ready to be potted on. Once i’d done this i was running out of room fast so i invested in a cheap plastic greenhouse for only £20. While this helped me house about a quarter of the 90 plants I had, i still ended up giving over half of them away to friends!

Note from The King: North Wales is not known for its tropical climate so Gordon’s success to date just goes to show that growing chilli plants in the UKs cool climate is easier than many people think.

What mistakes have you made this growing season?

Well, not really a mistake but to make matters worse i ended up buying some more seed on the internet (a gorgeous variety of chilli called Explosive Ember and some Thai Bird). These are have now just germinated and are in the light box. It’s 24-25 degrees in the day and about 19-20 at night so they should grow quickly.

Apache F1 Chilli Plant

Then to compound things I was in the florist buying flowers for my wife ( I hadn’t even done anything wrong!) when I saw they had a couple of good healthy plants. So I came home with flowers and an Apache which now lives in the greenhouse.

Note from The King: Planting too many seeds is a mistake i make every year! I always end up with a shop bought Apache – they are great fun and so prolific even if lacking a little in the flavour department.

Watering & Feed

I found watering only 3-4 days per week seems to work best, sometimes adding a feed of 1/4 strength tomato food seems to help too. Once my new seedlings have been potted on then I going to change the tube in my light box for a 300 LED grow light and put a couple a each variety in and just see want difference it makes

Note from The King: We’ve not tried LED lights yet so we’ll be interested to hear how you get on.
Thanks for that Gordon. Hopefully we’ll catch up again later in thew season to see how his plants get on throughout the summer. If you’d like you and your chilli plants to be featured next month in our readers feature get in contact.

Having moved house 3 weeks ago i now have a conservatory/summerhouse that I am able to use as a chilli house. At my previous place the garden was very small and for the most part of the day, shaded. While I expected the extra heat and light of a conservatory to help speed up growth of my chilli plants I have been amazed by their progress in the last 3 weeks.

Thanks to their new home, and the good spell of English weather we’ve been having the plants have almost doubled in size in the last 15 days. As mentioned in my last post i’ve started to harden off the plants by moving them outside during the day. Thanks to the weather this hasn’t been to get them used to the cold so much as to prevent them from getting scorched in the conservatory! An added bonus is the heating in the conservatory that enables me to maintain night time temperatures of a min of 17 degrees which should help speed up their growth.

This weekend I potted most of my plants on yet again, this time into 20cm pots. Chilli plants like to keep their roots fairly dry so i add a handful of vermiculite to the compost in each pot to help with drainage.

While it is so hot i also try to water them both in the morning and the evening as they dry out very quickly in pots during such warm weather.  If the weather stays so nice I won’t have to wait too much longer before they start to flower and produce fruit. At this point i’ll start adding some feed to help the fruiting process.

Up until recently this years crop of chillies have been living under lights down in my cellar. With the weather being so unpredictable this is by far the safest option as down there they avoid any cold nights in the greenhouse as well a constant supply of light from the florescent tubes. Recently, after moving house, the plants have been moved out from under the lights into a conservatory. The warmer environment has definitely helped their speed of growth.

Now that the weather has picked up a bit I have began the process of moving my plants outside. I have lost chilli plants in the past by moving them straight outside so i thought i’d explain the process of how I am hardening off my chilli plants now.

Why Harden Off Your Chilli Plants?

As Spring fully kicks in and the temperatures start to warm up, it is the time to start to think about moving your chilli plants out of the greenhouse or off the window sill and out into the big wild world. The main advantage to be gained by moving plants outside is the amount of sunlight they will receive outside should be significantly more than if you currently have them indoors on a windowsill.

In addition most gardeners (myself included) tend to be a bit over zealous with their planting in early spring and will be rapidly running out of room in their greenhouses as plants suddenly shoot up in the warm weather. Year after year I plant many more seeds than plants required and end up with minimal space both inside and in the greenhouse. Not only is space an issue but overcrowding in the greenhouse can promote fungal growth as a result of poor air circulation.

How To Harden Plants Off

In order to give your plants the best chance of success it is best to ‘harden them off’ prior to leaving them outside full time. This is the process of slowly getting them used to the cooler temperatures and windy conditions outside. In Spring temperatures can fluctuate wildly with hot days followed by very cold nights and strong gusts of wind an ever present threat to delicate stems. Chilli plant seedlings can easily be killed or severely damaged by these fluctuations if used to a constant indoor temperature. The need to harden plants off is not specific to chillies, but most types of veg.

How I Harden Off Chilli Plants

To help the plants adapt slowly it is best to first simply open all windows and doors on your hose/greenhouse to allow a breeze to sweep through during the day. This should help them develop stronger stems as well as improving air circulation. If you are growing your seedlings indoors, under gro lights you can use a small fan (an old computer fan is ideal) to help create airflow and strengthen stems.

After a week or so try moving the plants outside for a few hours during the middle of the day. Every 2 to 3 days leave them out a bit longer. Be sure to keep a careful check on the temperatures or wind forecast. If it looks like things may drastically change then play safe and leave the plants inside.

Assuming the weather holds you should be able to leave the plants out over night after 2-3 weeks. Again only do this once nighttime temperatures look to be consistently above 12 degrees. Until Summer arrives  be sure to keep one eye on the weather forecast in case there is a late frost. If the night time temperatures look too cold (single digits) then bring the plants back inside for the night or at very least cover them in fleece.

Hardening Off With A Cold Frame

If space is really short you could try using a cold frame to help get your plants outside earlier. A cold frame basically acts like a small greenhouse by providing a indoor like environment around the plants, sheltering them from the elements. If you do not have the budget or space for a full blown greenhouse then a cold frame is a great alternative.

image by knitting iris

Hardening off chilli plants with a cold frame is much like I described above. One thing to watch out for is the potential to over heat your plants. The smaller size of cold frames means that on a hot day, if the lid is closed, temperatures inside can sore, high enough to damage your plants. During the day it can be a good idea to leave the lid open or slightly ajar to let the air circulate and keep the temperatures under control.

Conclusion

Hardening off you chilli plants is a key stage in their growth. Don’t do it and you could damage their growth or even worse lose you whole crop. Plants of all kinds hate sudden rapid environment changes so hardening off help them adapt to the transition of indoor to outdoor life.

Assuming your plants are fully hardened off and happy in their new home outside you’ll have a whole new set of things to worry about, mainly slugs & snails, aphids and various other pests that now have full access to your beloved chilli plants. The following articles may be of interest to you and be worth a read before disaster strikes:

• Pest & Diseases

• Aphids

• Slugs & Snails

It is now Spring and I have a healthy batch of chilli seedlings well on the way. I’ve been extremely busy over the last few weeks moving home as well as starting a new job so i’ve neglecting my chilli plants a bit recently.

After my plants germinated back in the first week of April I used a home made light box to help their growth. The main reason for doing this was the lack of south facing window or sunny garden at my old home.

As you can see in the photo above, my pepper seedlings were long overdue to be potted on. Finally last weekend I found the time to putting them into individual pots. I don’t think the plants have suffered too much from being stuck in a cell tray however it may take them a while to put on more growth while their somewhat small roots get used to their new larger pots.

I usually tend to pot on my chilli plants 3 to 4 times between when they germinate and when they are fully grown. I germinated this years crop in seed cell trays with the aid of a heat mat. Now i’ve just put them into 3 ” pots and i’ll probably put them straight into 9″ pots in a few weeks time.

As with all plants when re-potting them try to avoid disturbing the roots as much as possible. This can be tricky when removing them from seed cells so I use 2 x lolly sticks stuck together as a little spade to help me get the root ball out in one piece.

Save Money on Small Pots

I have just repotted my chilli plants into some old plastic drinks cups recycled from work. They are slightly larger than your average drinking fountain cup measuring about 3.5″  (9cm) diameter across the top. The plants will only be in these pots for a few weeks at most so i’m more than happy to use drinking cups. All i do is use a drill to put 2 or 3 drainage holes in the bottom of each pot.

As well as saving money on pots, helping the environment another advantage of using these clear cups is they let you see exactly how dry the compost inside is so you can ensure you don’t over water the plants.

Having moved house a couple of weeks ago the plants have now been installed in their new home – a conservatory. One problem I had in my old home was the very small, shaded garden which meant my chillies received very little direct sunlight. I’ll be interested to see how their growth rate increases now they are living in a warmer, sunny environment.