Chillies et al.

[igenlode]

I finally pricked out the Demon Red chillies from their windowsill pot, putting six of them into a narrow tub in the mini-greenhouse with an eye to thinning them out later, and two into a temporary cardboard toilet-roll with an eye to giving them away in the near future; I should of course have hardened my heart and simply disposed of the spares! I did steel myself to throw away the very small ones.

The seedlings had better roots than the ones I potted up last year, although of course I'm doing so a week later.

And I do *finally* have a single nasturtium coming up, very belatedly.

I moved the Roma tomatoes out of the mini-greenhouse to make way for the chillies to live outside; the ones that were inside it do look a lot more vigorous than the ones that have been outside and unprotected all April, but it's quite possible that I put the 'best' seedlings under shelter in the first place and left the runts to take their chances! It looks as if I *may* have some germination from the fresh batch of basil that I put in there a couple of weeks ago, although the soil in that pot is looking very green and compacted. The only sign of life from the furry hedgehog wildlife garden is a single shoot of grass and a whole lot of white mould, but I shan't repine if that basil doesn't grow at all :-p

Comments

[paserbyp]

Demon chile peppers are believed to be variants of the red Thai chile plant, which is a descendant of the ancient chile pepper varieties first discovered in Central and South America. Peppers were introduced to Asia via Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries and the spicy pepper varieties became widely popular, grown in home gardens and commercially cultivated. Over time, many of the favored varieties such as the red Thai chile were selectively bred for specific traits resulting in new peppers such as Demon chile peppers. Today Demon chile peppers can be found through online seed catalogs for home garden use and in specialty markets in the United Kingdom, Africa, the United States, Asia, and Southeast Asia.

[igenlode]

"Demon Red" is a specific named variety of dwarf chilli.
https://www.watersidegardencentre.co.uk/unwins-pepper-chilli-demon-red

I've been growing them since 2022: https://igenlode.dreamwidth.org/261265.html

They seem to like the summertime conditions on my rooftop balcony, and I carefully selected a variety that is not a hybrid and which appears to breed true -- I collect and re-sow the seeds every year. But growing chillies outdoors in England, even in a sheltered and sunny area surrounded by warm brick walls, is always a bit of a gamble, and every year I wonder if the chillies are going to go red before the autumn kills off the parent plants, and whether the seeds are going to germinate in the low spring temperatures...