Add sweetness, spice or heat to your life
Growing peppers and chillies can become rather addictive! I wouldn’t have believed this until a few years ago, but now I have several chilli varieties on the go every year, plus some overwintered plants. Although growing both plants during the season is pretty much the same, chillies do benefit from early sowing – January or February, especially if they’re the hot varieties.
If you can’t provide enough heat and light for germination and growing on, it’s best to buy young plants from garden centres in spring. You can also buy grafted seedlings of peppers and chillies with delivery from mid-April, which cuts out the hassle.
Growing chillies
I’ve really got into growing chillies. From growing Loco several years ago (see below), I now have several varieties under my belt (not literally), with heat ranging from mild to searingly super hot! They’re much easier to grow than I thought, and I could kick myself for not having a go earlier. I’ve even started overwintering chilli plants, which means you get a much faster start the next season. Apparently, you can overwinter sweet peppers, too, but I’ve never tried this.
If you’re new to chillies, it’s not all about the heat but flavour – the heat is measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), ranging from 0 (sweet bell pepper) to the world’s hottest, the Carolina Reaper at more than 2,000,000 SHU! There really is a chilli for everyone, even if you don’t like heat. I don’t like really hot chillies, but love the richness or fruitiness some varieties can give. I can recommend the unusual selection from www.realseeds.co.uk, which also has some great growing tips.
For more on the varieties Razzamatazz, Palivec, Biquino Red and Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, here’s my round-up of chillies 2020. For more information on growing super-hot chillies, see my post on Trinidad Moruga Scorpion.
My first chillies: Loco
I’m a bit of a girl when it comes to chillies, but Loco is a great plant. It’s compact (60cm), bushy and covered with flowers. It’s decorative – the inch-long cone-shaped fruits are held upright above the foliage like little fairy lights. The fruits start purple/cream, changing from orange to red, then look like plump blackcurrants. Loco, despite its name, is not that hot – slightly less than cayenne pepper, a medium heat level of about 24,000 SHU.
Which Gardening Chilli Trials recommended it as a Best Buy: “The small, rounded fruit looked very attractive, both when they were unripe and purple and when they turned ripe, rich red.” Loco is UK-bred and can even be grown on the patio. Seeds are widely available, including from Suttons and Thompson & Morgan.
Potted guide: Sowing chillies
January and February are the best months to start sowing chilli seeds, especially hot varieties that need a long growing season. You can sow up until the end of March, but early sowing gives plants the best chance of producing ripe fruit.
- Fill trays or pots with peat-free multipurpose compost.
- Level and tamp down compost, then water.
- Sow seed, covering to a depth of 6mm with vermiculite or compost.
- Place in a propagator or warm place at 21ºC until germination.
- Move seedlings to a cooler temperature, 16-18ºC, with good light to prevent them from getting leggy.
How hot are chillies? Check the Scoville Scale
The Scoville Scale is the measurement of the pungency (spicy heat) of chillies or other spicy foods in Scoville heat units (SHU), or capsaicin concentration, named after its creator, US pharmacist Wilbur Scoville. Popular chillies in descending order of hellishness:
- 2,000,000-2,200,000 SHU: Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, Carolina Reaper.
- 855,000–1,463,700 SHU: Naga Viper; Bhut Jolokia (ghost pepper), Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper; Bedfordshire Super Naga.
- 100,000–350,000 SHU: Habanero chilli, Scotch bonnet pepper.
- 30,000–50,000 SHU: Cayenne pepper, Tabasco pepper.
- 10,000–23,000 SHU: Serrano pepper.
- 3,500–10,000 SHU: Jalapeño.
- 100–900 SHU: Paprika, Pimento.
- 0 SHU: Sweet bell pepper.
My first variety: Healthy
Sweet peppers are one of those crops, like basil, that can quickly fall victim to aphids, especially in an enclosed environment like my conservatory. Everything else will be untouched, but pepper plants will be deformed twisted horrors. I decided to try an early Russian variety, called Healthy, developed in the mid-1990s, from Plant World Seeds. Each wedge-shaped fruit is about four inches long and ripens from yellow through orange to red, even during cloudy summers.
They were sown at the same time as the tomatoes (early March) – they do need heat to germinate and good light conditions. To ward off the inevitable greenfly, I planted a garlic clove with every plant – and it did help. There was a minor attack earlier in the season, but the peppers draw up the insecticidal properties of the garlic, so whatever sucks the sap doesn’t last long. Of course, it’s perfectly safe and organic. I had much more success with Lemon Dream, which grows to just 45cm tall and masses of bright yellow, mild and sweet peppers up to 7cm long.
Potted guide: Sowing sweet peppers
Sow from mid-February or early March for plants that are to be grown under glass. You can wait until late March or early April if the peppers are being cultivated outdoors.
- Fill trays or pots with peat-free multipurpose compost.
- Level and tamp down compost, then water.
- Sow seed, covering to a depth of 6mm with vermiculite or compost.
- Cover pots/trays with plastic bags to keep in moisture.
- Place in a propagator or warm windowsill at 18-21ºC until germination.
- Move seedlings to a cooler temperature, 16-18ºC, with good light to prevent them from getting leggy.
