Well it certainly looks like the weather has turned and autumn is well and truly with us to stay. The nights have been turning noticeably cooler (it got down to 6 degrees one night last week).
In order to try and keep some of the unripe pods maturing I’ve moved quite a few of my smaller plants into the house (check here for more ripening tips) so they can benefit from some central heating at night time. Luckily we have a south facing conservatory so they should still get plenty of sun.
One of the plans I’ve moved is this Scotch Bonnet plant that I raised from seed in 2010 and was the first of my overwintered plants to flower last year.
The roots on this chilli plant are looking incredibly woody, gnarled even. This plant looks perfect to try and turn into a bonsai chili pant. I’ve got a spare bonsai pot in the shed that i can use so I think i’ll give it a go with this scotch bonnet.
There’s an excellent guide on how to create a chili bonsai here which I’ll try and implement on this plant either in the next couple of weeks or maybe early next spring. For now hopefully the extra heat of the conservatory will help ripen these pods.
I have grown chillis from seed for the first time this year. They were sown sown in Febuary indoors on my kitchen window cill, once they were 2″ to 3″ high i transfered them to 5″ pots. They have been outdoors in direct sunlight for the last 5 or 6 weeks but have not grown any bigger, any tips?. Many thanks, Clive
Clive,
I often find growth slows in Spring time. Once we get some more sunny weather back and the temperatures stay high they should shoot up again. The key things are to get them the maximum amount of light and keep them warm. Are you able to move them under glass or move them inside overnight as this might help?
Hi Chilli King
Thanks for the update but unfortunately the link to creating a bonsai chilli does not work.
Please could you let me know how to get to the article as it seems that it would be good to try.
Thanks
Trevor Johnson
Trevor – I’ve fixed the link above…it should work now 😉