The End

My 2012 season was bought to a premature end at the beginning of December when the heating system failed. I was thinking about closing the greenhouse down around that point anyway, but this gave me no options.

In all the season had been very tough - the wrong weather at the wrong moments in time meant I had low crop levels with some varieties just not pulling their weight.

So a last few photos and then it's time to draw a line under 2012.

 

 

 

Been a bit busy

So I've been a little busy over the summer and so updating the blog's been a bit of a struggle. However, I thought I'd better put up a few of the highlights and lowlights of the last few months.

It's been an awful summer in many respects. May to July was cool and wet, and although I had good growth rates from the plants, flowering was very poor and so was the setting of pods.

In fact, where as I would normally expect to be harvesting from July onwards, not a lot seemed to happen on the pod front until August.

Late September finally started to produce a few ripe pods - certainly enough for my own needs, but nothing like I was hoping to see. The images below show how well things grew, just a shame there weren't any more pods. The lower photo is the fatalii - not a single pod to be seen.

This was the September harvest - heavy on the Marouga Yellow and a few other things, but not exactly the piles of pods I was expecting to see.


October demonstrated that a few of the varieties were doing something, but some were not, so I took out the secateurs and anything that didn't have a pod on it at that point was cut back. The mini-rocotto, despite it's many flowers had no pods, the fatalii similarly and many of the others had a hair cut. it was a shame that such large plants were unproductive, but that's that.
 
Mid-october also saw the re-introduction of the heating. With a few cooler nights forecasted I set the thermostat to 6 degrees and this seems to have extended the season as usual.

Today (1st November) I've just been down for a tidy up and harvest. There's still much more to do, but hopefully I can spend some time over the next few days getting back on top of things and getting ready for the winter. 

Here are the photos from today:

PI260560 has been quite prolific later on in the season, producing many medium sized red pods. The plant is quite busy and tangled, so would be best well staked and tied in for better results.

CGN 23258 has produced a good head of small round pods, but only a few have ripened so far.

Probably the most productive of all my wild plants this year, CGN 22871 has produced many pods like these and is continuing to do so. Only issue is that they do not seem to store well - best to dry or freeze these fairly quickly.

Habanero Cristina - small pods trurning creamy yellow as they ripen. Quite productive, but struggling with the poor weather this year.

PI 260504 is covered in these tiny yellow pods. I haven't tried any yet though, but picking could be a tediously slow exercise.

CGN 21500 was billed as a spectacular plant, and I can see that (kind of) but for me it's not been that productive. Maybe next year.

Fatalii red has done quite well this year. Not massively productive, but better than last year.

A few 7 pods have started to ripen. Better than last year, but not amazing. This wont get grown again.

The harvest today (mostly the species shown above with a few Nagas and Marougas thrown in). There's still more to come.

Finally a little currant bun

It's taken it's time arriving, but it looks like we're about to get some sunshine. I just hope it lasts longer than the short term forecast of a week or so. A couple of months would be nice, with an Indian summer running into October would be my preference. 

Anyhow. All is going fairly well in the greenhouse, regular watering and feeding lightly every other day seems to be getting things moving nicely. Stars of the show are the Praetermissum and Mini Rocoto (both 6ft tall), although the Marouga Yellow is having a good go too. 

A couple of the plants are a little less impressive, the Pimenta de Neyde is not doing much and the 7 pot is a little small. But mostly things they are a-growing. 

I actually had my first fresh chillis yesterday - 2 green CAP 267s made it into my lunch. Not very hot or remarkable, but nice anyhow. I shall have to grab a few for lunch at work. 

So a few photo highlights. Most are as labelled, the other one if the mini rocotto. The latter is growing great guns, but the pods dont seem to be setting yet - hopefully a warm spell will help. 

A little bit mad

So although it feels like nothing's happened for weeks, the plants in the greenhouse have really started to bush out. There is a vast amount of flowers out, or about to come out, but not that many pods forming. Hopefully, the change in the weather that's forecast for next week (the jet stream is due to move and make a big difference) will increase the pod set and a decent harvest may be on the cards. 

In the mean time, it looks like I'll have to get on with some tying back and tidying up - it's starting to get difficult to walk down the greenhouse path. 

Something else

So the last week has been a little slow weather wise. A little sun and heat, but a fair amount of cloud and rain. However, the plants are doing well, in fact they are really bushing out (I had to tie a few plants back) and a good show of flowers is evident throughout the greenhouse. Fingers crossed that they set and a flush of pods start to appear.

On an aside I sowed a few seeds yesterday. One of my 'experiments' - last year I tried to grow bamboo from seed and failed dismally (nothing germinated at all), so this year I'm trying with acers. Seeds for 6 different varieties have been in the fridge for the passed few months and now they've been sown. 2 seeds per pot (mostly), 8 pots per variety and under the lights to see what will happen. I don't expect much and anything that does emerge is likely to take some time, but why not? I've got the equipment, maintenance is minor and you never know.

Now all I need to know is what will I do if I suddenly have the best part of 100 acers on my hands? A nice problem to have :-)

A few pods

So a few more weeks gone, plus a little improvement in the weather and I'm starting to see a few pods appear. 

Most plants have now some level of flowers appearing, with only a few exceptions, and a couple of the over-wintered plants that were a little stunted have got going at last - whether this will be too little, too late remains to be seen. But it's something to watch. 

I'm getting a little greenfly from time to time, but a quick squirt of ultimate bug killer and all is well.

The really big plants are the Marouga Yellow, the Tepin and the Mini Rocoto, but everything seems to be benefitting from the improved weather and temperatures of late. We've not had a crazy hot summer as yet, but we are at least getting a little sun from time to time. 

I have a few jobs to do (weeding and cutting back) around the back of the greenhouse, but these are not major problems yet. 

I'm now feeding several time a week with low doses of chilli focus, it seems to be working with no signs yet of over-feeding.

So a few photos of the greenhouse and the varieties with pods to date:

Mustard Hab growing out from the centre of the flower

Marouga Yellow

Mystery 6 - some sort of chinense, maybe a long podded hab of some sort

Mystery 2 - an upright podded annum. Not a PC1 or superchili though.

Micro Fatalii pods - including my first ripe pod of the year!

CAP 267, these pods started by growing upwards, but then swung down with the weight.

A 7-pod pretending to be a trinidad scorpion :-)

A little update

So with the weather conspiring against me (will it ever stop raining properly), it was nice to see a good spell of sun at the end of May. This really got the plants going at long last, although I suspect I am a good few weeks behind where I was last year. 

Good news - most of the plants are now in flower. I've sorted out the greenhouse, potted on the last few stragglers and made space for chilli central. I now have one or two other (non-chilli) plants to find homes for. I have pods appearing on a few varieties now (Cap 253c, CGN 21500 & Fatalii to name but a few). They are small pods, typical of early season, but it's a start. 

Bad news - many of the over-wintered plants seem stunted. The Mustard Hab, 7 pod & Naga Morich are barely moving. Hopefully they'll put on a spurt, but maybe not. By comparison the Fatalii, Tepin and Marouga Yellow are going great guns. So maybe it's a 50:50 thing. 

Anyway a few random photos, the labels tell you what's what. Let's hope for some better weather.

Some of the plants from the greenhouse waiting to be re-homed