Over the last few years of growing chillies by far the most common pest my plants have faced have been aphids. Over the last few years I’ve posted about how to treat an aphid infestation so this year i thought it was about time i was a bit more proactive and attempted to take preventative…
When buying regular potting compost the first decision you’ll face is whether to opt for peat free or not. Peat free has traditionally been the best kind however it is particularly bad for the environment as it is harvested from the natural environment, usually from areas with fragile and diverse eco-systems. While there are some…
Disaster has struck. Yesterday morning i forgot to take the propagator lid off one tray of chillies that were on the conservatory window sill. I got home and discovered that the seedlings that had germinated had been frazzled by the heat. The conservatory itself got up over 35 degrees so it must have been even…
Now that some of my chilli seeds have germinated my main aim is to get as much light to them as possible. While we’ve had a few glorious Spring sunny days the weather is still a bit unpredictable and the days not too long. As a result it is crucial to get as much light…
I posted a few days ago about how one of my over wintering plants has suddenly sprung back into life, just as I was about to give up hope that any of the plants had made it through the winter. This has inspired me to finally get round to planting some chilli seeds. [ad name=”square”]…
Well for quite a while now my chilli plants that i am over wintering have been looking increasingly dead.After trimming them back in December, the plants have been looking so dormant i thought they were dead. First of all the stems took on a hallow look then the stems themselves started to turn black in…
Having selected a few plants to over winter a few weeks ago i trimmed them back to help them preserve their energy over the cold months and moved them inside to keep them away from the very cold temperatures. Unfortunately we ran out of heating oil for about 1 week just before Christmas and as…
Unfortunately I left this poor plant outside a few weeks ago when i began to over winter my plants. I went outside at the weekend to discover it sitting in about 5 inches of snow. In order to give the plants I moved inside the best chance I am using my trusty greenhouse heater to keep…
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…