Well, folks, the 2018 chilli growing season officially ended for me on the Thursday 18th October when a madman went on the rampage with secateurs and chopped down everything in sight, all except for one plant and a pair of curtains. It was utter carnage! I had initially planned on keeping the plants for a while longer to allow the remaining chillies to ripen up, but to be honest there were a lot more ripe ones and semi-ripe ones than unripe ones, and unripe chillies can be just as tasty as ripe chillies, depending on what types they are and how you use them. I find green ones to work very well in Thai curries, and semi-ripe ones are normally placed onto a sunny windowsill for a few days until fully ripe.
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| Chilli Plants in the Porch - 18th October 2018 |
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| Chilli Plants in the Porch - 18th October 2018 |
Twelve days prior to the carnage I did another chilli harvest and the following three photos were taken on the same day. Incidentally, the total weight of this year's
Aji Charapita chillies without pedicels (because I always remove the pedicels before
freezing any chillies) is exactly 100 grams.
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| Aji Charapita - 6th October 2018 |
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| Chocolate Habanero - 6th October 2018 |
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| Chilli Harvest - 6th October 2018 |
This next photo shows all the remaining chillies that were harvested on the 18th October. I also picked the remaining chillies from the surplus plants growing in the vegetable patch, which turned out to be a nice amount. They had no chance of ripening up, and as of writing this it has been thirteen days since I took down the plants and over the last three nights we've had frost.
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| Chilli Harvest - 18th October 2018 |
The
Mini Rocoto Brown plant is still with us for the time being and is now living in the front porch, where the temperature is currently sitting at 8F, so a couple of degrees warmer than the lounge! The plant has done really well, as I've mentioned in previous posts, and I will definitely be growing this variety again next season. Initially I had intended on using the peppers in a hot sauce, but I've now changed my mind and will soon be adding them to a curried apple and chilli chutney that will be made in time for Christmas.
I don't have any plans to over-winter the plant and I'm only keeping it for the time being so the remaining peppers have chance to ripen. Unripe Habaneros are one thing, but I'm certainly no fan of unripe Rocotos. Some of them are now starting to ripen and hopefully the rest won't be too far behind.
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| Mini Rocoto Brown - 28th October 2018 |
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| Mini Rocoto Brown - 28th October 2018 |
I've managed to save 10 HP Sauce bottles so far, and the first batch of Habanero hot sauce was made several nights ago. My recipe makes just over 2-litres of sauce, which is enough to fill eight of these bottles. The chillies used in this batch were
Red Mayan Habanero, and in the next batch I will be using
Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero.
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Spicemad's Habanero Hot Sauce - 28th October 2018
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Next year's chilli growing season will begin sometime during February, but until then there will be very low activity on this blog, not that this blog is bustling even during the growing season. Four months seems a long way off, and I guess it is. Over the next few months I'll be in the back room adding more text to some of the pages under the grow list section and hunting for new varieties to grow. Knock twice if you need me.
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