Blog: a bumper pack of varieties to try under glass…
We’re in winter’s icy grip at the moment, but this is the best time to be sowing chilli pepper seeds. Chillies need a long growing season, especially the very hot varieties. It’s advisable to start them off in January or February. However, if you don’t have a decent propagator or a grow light, it’s OK to wait until the days get a bit longer.
Just to clear up the often-confused names here. Peppers (sweet peppers, not the sort you sprinkle on your dinner) belong to the Piper family, and chillies belong to the genus Capsicum. Capsaicin is the compound which gives chillies their heat, measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Sweet or bell peppers contain little to no capsaicin and have a sweet taste.
Chillies on a sunny windowsill
By the way, when I say under glass, most chillies will be happy on a sunny windowsill. You don’t have to own a greenhouse – I grow mine in the sunny conservatory on the side of the house. For the full nitty-gritty on growing chillies and peppers, visit my information page. That’s where you’ll find the step-by-step Potted Guides – look for the skull on the plant pot!
This year, I have four different varieties to try, all of them new to me. They’re all from Fothergill’s – the first three from The Pepper Collection (3 chillies, 3 sweet peppers – I’ll sow these in a few weeks).
Red Cherry: (100-3,500 SHU) Growing conditions account for the variation in heat. The small chillies are only about 3cm across.
Progressively hotter fruits
Hungarian Hot Wax: (2,000 SHU) Crisp, fleshy fruits up to 11cm long, harvested yellow to keep the plant fruiting. If left on the plants, fruits ripen to orange.
Jalapeno: (2,500-8,000 SHU) The hotness varies so much because it depends on when they’re picked during the growing season. Dark green jalapenos are not fully ripe and are less spicy, whereas red jalapenos are fully ripe and are hotter.
De Cayenne: (30,000-50,000 SHU) Small red fruits. (Free with January’s Gardener’s World magazine).
Once they’ve germinated, I’ll pop them under my grow lamp to make sure they get 12 hours of daylight a day until March, and lower the ambient temperature so they don’t get leggy. It’s worth sowing chilli pepper seeds – growing them can become quite addictive!
