I spent an hour last week
saving seeds from some of this year's varieties in order to replenish my seed stock. It's always advisable to wear gloves when de-seeding chillies, but to be honest I rarely ever do because they're more of a hindrance to me, and I hate it when the seeds keep sticking to the gloves. Instead, I'd rather put up with having spicy fingers for a few hours and then wear the gloves when visiting the bathroom. My Intention wasn't to save too many seeds, but upon quick inspection it now appears that I have approximately 250 from each variety.
Here are couple of photos showing the porch plants. The first one was taken two weeks ago and the second one was taken yesterday. As a rule I normally take a photo of these plants before harvesting any chillies from them, but yesterday evening I accidentally picked the chillies before taking the photo.
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| Chilli Plants in the Porch - 11th September 2018 |
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| Chilli Plants in the Porch - 23rd September 2018 |
I took the
Aji Charapita plants off the windowsill last Friday to give them a good shake because they're dropping quite a few leaves now that the weather has turned colder. I'll take back what I wrote in the previous post about them not being as prolific as last year's plants. I rarely move them for the reason given in the last post, and I hadn't noticed just how many chillies there are.
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| Aji Charapita - 21st September 2018 |
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| Aji Charapita - 21st September 2018 |
There are some very big
Chocolate Habanero chillies on this year's plants, and I've been picking ripe ones here and there and
freezing them. Rarely do I ever get to pick more than two ripe ones at a time, but yesterday I picked seven. This variety has never been hugely prolific for me but the chillies are very tasty and well worth having, in my opinion.
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| Chocolate Habanero - 23rd September 2018 |
I also picked more ripe
Dorset Naga chillies yesterday. The remaining ones aren't too far behind now and should hopefully ripen up within the next couple of weeks. I love this variety!
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| Dorset Naga - 11th September 2018 |
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| Dorset Naga - 21st September 2018 |
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| Dorset Naga - 19th September 2018 |
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| Dorset Naga - 23rd September 2018 |
Both
Inca Berry plants have started flowering again and are now in the process of producing a second flush of chillies, although only one plant is shown in the photo below for the same reason given in a previous post. Both plants were given a light feed last week, but whether or not the pods will have time to ripen will remain to be seen. Even green ones are a bonus though.
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| Inca Berry - 21st September 2018 |
Yesterday evening I picked the remaining chillies from the surplus plants growing in the vegetable patch. The night time temperatures have now dropped significantly and some of the pods have already been attacked by bugs, so rather than leave them any longer I decided to bring them in. The
Jalapeño M chillies have been
frozen at the green stage and will be used up over the next few weeks, but the
Inca Red Drop and
Aji Lemon chillies have been placed into a cardboard box with two ripe bananas for company.
Ripe bananas give of Ethylene gas and this will also speed up the ripening process of other fruits nearby. This is the method I used in 2014 to ripen up the remaining Bishop's Crown and
Aji Fantasy chillies, and it worked okay but took about one week in total. There are still some small chillies left on the plants, but I intend to leave those for the time being to see if they grow a bit larger. I'm very surprised by how well the outdoor plants have done.
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| Chilli Harvest - 23rd September 2018 |
My mystery benefactor also gave me a few more of her ripe
Aji Lemon chillies two weeks ago. Considering how Aji Lemon wasn't on my grow list this year, I've still ended up with a good-sized bag of them. Not that I'm complaining.
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| Aji Lemon - 12th September 2018 |
The
Mini Rocoto Brown plant is still flowering and setting fruit, and two days ago I counted 40 new peppers. Considering how I've already had about 20 peppers from it already, I'd say this was pretty good going for one plant growing in a 7-litre pot in the window.
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| Mini Rocoto Brown - 21st September 2018 |
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| Mini Rocoto Brown Flower - 21st September 2018 |
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| Mini Rocoto Brown - 21st September 2018 |
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| Mini Rocoto Brown - 21st September 2018 |
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| Mini Rocoto Brown - 21st September 2018 |
Both
Red Mayan Habanero plants are still setting fruit, and last week they were given a light feed. Here are couple of photos showing two recent harvests of wonderful spicy goodness.
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| Red Mayan Habanero - 11th September 2018 |
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| Red Mayan Habanero - 19th September 2018 |
Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero is most definitely on the grow list again for next year. The plants are like mini pod factories, and when people say you get hundreds of chillies from one plant — they're not joking! Only one of the plants is shown in the photo below because it's the more photogenic of the two.
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Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero - 21st September 2018
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Here are couple of photos showing two recent harvests of Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero, Mini Rocoto Brown, Chocolate Habanero, Red Mayan Habanero and Dorset Naga chillies.
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| Chilli Harvest - 11th September 2018 |
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| Chilli Harvest - 23rd September 2018 |
I'm currently in the process of saving HP Sauce bottles, and when I've collected eight I will make the first batch of hot sauce. I begrudge paying stupid money online for a case of 12 x 250ml square glass bottles when they're cheaper to buy at the supermarket and come filled with sauce. Removing the labels is easy and the bottles are thoroughly scrubbed inside and out using hot soapy water, rinsed and then sterilised in the oven at 130C for 25 minutes. The lids are scrubbed with soapy water and then sterilised using Milton or an equivalent of.
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