golden greek pepperoncini

It’s that time of year where the sun is lovely & warm and the nights are not too chilly. We’re racing towards longest day: action stations everyone.

The Birdhouse greenhouse is brimming with leafy specimen. No longer a cocooned sanctuary from the Night King but a claustrophobic bubble isolating the chilli babies from the real world. Time for the babies to grow UP and for the bubble wrap to come DOWN. It has served its insulating purpose well but now it is shading a little too much; stopping the auto ventilation window doing its thing; trapping pollinators and taking up precious ceiling height. Roll it up for next year.

Suddenly, the whole space is flooded with clear light. Wonderful.

Bubble wrap before
And after
All clear

The light issue continues…

A quick stock take reveals that we are seriously running out of space. How this has happened is beyond us but it seems to be a phenomenon known well to Chilliheads across the land. Each season we go through a number of cullings. Precious plants are sorted into ‘keepers’ and ‘the rest’. And yet, despite this harsh practice, there still seem to be more pots than ever before.

We sorted at chitting/germination point. Some seeds just didn’t look right and didn’t get potted up into wee paper pots. The compost heap was the destination for these leggy seedlings. The next couple of rounds of sorting happened at potting on stages. Weedy plants, non-thrivers or just varieties where we had too many plants were all thinned out.

The thinnings will populate our local school Summer Fete’s plant stall. They have been potted into non-conformist pots that we do not wish to keep for re-use; kept outside in temperatures of nearly zero; unceremoniously plonked into multi-purpose compost and barely kept alive on a lean diet of fresh air and rain water. They are, however, tall and flowering away, so all is good. They should sell well!

And now, we should be at the point where the perfect number of plants has been achieved. And how many do we have? 110 to be exact. We couldn’t possibly manage with less that that number of plants.

But hang on a mo, there STILL doesn’t seem to be space for them all in the greenhouse. We are having to utilise the floor for trays of plants. This is not ideal as the light levels are lower down there. Rotation of plants is tricky but absolutely necessary. On top of the overcrowding issue, lots are yet to go into their final (bigger) resting pots. So after all that sorting there are still too many plants.

Family, neighbours and friends beware, you will have to adopt some chilli babies…Momma’s about to get mean.

Meanwhile, in happier news, some of the bigger, earlier fruiters are just getting on with their thing. Golden Greek Pepperoncini is smothered with flower and fruit. Oh, and the roots are out the bottom again. Time to reach for the soldering iron and make some holes in the bottom of those flower buckets because potting on is in the diary for the weekend AGAIN.

Golden Greek Pepperoncini…
…the first of his name

UK frosts are a damnable thing…dominating our lives for weeks on end, with never the same frost twice. Omnipresent during the darker months. No way a chilli plant is growing out there…not a snowball’s chance in Hell.

In early Spring, just when the birds are a-nesting, Jack Frost STILL manages to sneak up on you at the most unexpected times. You assume he’s gone, but then, BOO, there he is again! In the air, on the ground, feathered across the windows, wiping out blossom and melting soft new growth left, right and centre. He’s a real pain in the backside.

Luckily things start to change: the mercury creeping up the thermometer gives us a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. This cold WILL NOT last forever, we CAN do this.

Some nights are mild, then back to cool, then a few nights are colder. Watch out for the occasional late season sub zero arctic blaster though. No predictability leaves us doing the dance of a thousand plants, in and out we go. In the hope to harden off but not kill off.

Suddenly, ta-dah, there are no more frosts and all is forgotten (and forgiven). We go forward to salad days.

In our corner of Hampshire, the second week of May is scheduled as the last frost this year- pah, as if it is that easy to predict! Still, it does seem the worst is over and we can finally get on with the task of growing some chillies. And growing they are….

All plants are in the greenhouse or outside. Feeding and watering when the leaves look droopy. A twice daily check for aphids and an invitation to a ladybird or two over for dinner if any ‘phids are found.