Potting on this Year's Chilli Section

May is fast coming to a close and I’m afraid to say that I am late with the next stage of my chilli growing. My fourteen chosen plants have been growing away in their litre pots for the last month and they really could have done with being potted into their final positions by now. As for most of the country, indeed the world, lockdown has brought with it a lot of extra work and stress and my own plants needs have had to play second fiddle to those of our customers.

May has brought with it some fantastic sunny weather and chilli plants have been in their element. Some of the nights have been cooler, especially at the beginning of the month, so whilst my litre pot plants have been out in the greenhouse in the day,

I’ve been bringing them in most nights to my east facing bedroom windowsill to take advantage of the warmth of the house and the early morning sunshine.

As you can see from the photos, this has paid dividends and some of the plants are even starting to form pods, namely the Pimiento de Padron, the Orange Tyger and the Cayenne. This tells me that they are definitely ready to move into the greenhouse full time.

Most chillies need to be planted into a minimum pot size of around 7 litres, although there are a few that thrive in smaller pots, mostly ornamental varieties such as the Thai Demon, Pequin, Bolivian Rainbow and Zimbabwe Black. As with the previous potting on, an ideal substrate is a 50/50 mix of coir and compost with a few handfuls of vermiculite. Failing this, a very free-draining compost mix.

My Aji Charapita is looking gorgeous, I can't wait for the pods.

A couple of hours work should have them potted on as I’ve already given the greenhouse a good tidy and cleaned out the pots. I’m planting the Chinense varieties into the bigger pots, around 12 litres, as this really pays dividends with them.

Annuums are going into the smaller pots, around 8 litres, as they are continual fruiters and should still give me a really good number of pods. Between the fourteen plants, my family should be more than self sufficient in chillies this year. They are staked, labelled and tucked up in their beds. I know they will suddenly start growing like crazy and I can’t wait until they all start to flower and fruit.

I’m a big fan of self watering pots, which use a wick to drawer water up into the pots from a water tank below. They really help illuminate any issues of over and under watering, which cause the most common problems with chilli growing.

They also enable you to go away for a week or more and have your chilli plants well taken care of. My systems are really in need of replacing, as is my whole greenhouse actually, but delivery times on both were in excess of a month due to issues surrounding Covid, so that will have to wait for next year now.

At last my chilies are happily tucked up in their final positions.

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