Chillies et al.
22 April 2026 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI 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
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
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Date: 2026-04-22 04:02 pm (UTC)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...