chilli question

[David Sinfield]

I have been growing chilli plants for the last few years. I started with seed  
from some dried chillis that I bought years ago and have been replanting seed 
from the strongest of the plants each year. So I don't know what variety I have 
got.

I have found the plants remarkably hardy, growing and fruiting them outdoors in 
Surrey, only bringing them in if the temperature is going below 0C. I have 
found that if I crop the early fruit when they are green the plant produces 
much more fruit. The green fruit does not seem to be any less hot than the red 
but lacks the immediate sweetness that you get if you are eating them raw. 
Letting them ripen to red on a windowsill does develop the sweet taste. So I 
can see no real disadvatage in cropping them early and making room and strength 
for the later fruit. 

I am sure given greenhouse protection and similar conditions to indoor toamtoes 
I'd get bigger plants and more fruit, but it's just as easy to sow more seed 
and have lots of stocky plants making maybe a dozen 2" long fruits each over 
from begining of July to Sept or later. I usually start my seed indoors in 
March and put the plants outside in full sun as soon as then are a couple of 
inches tall and have some true leaves. Then I keep an eye on the weather 
forecast. If there might be an overnight frost, they come in or get covered in 
newspaper and a propogator lid put over them.

I now have a greenhouse, which I am going to keep frost free and I have some 
seedlings up now that I am going to try to keep through the winter to see 
if I can raise some mega plants next year.

Although the books say treat as HHA or even Greenhouse annual, I have a plant 
in it's second flowering and fruiting season that was kept dry and just above 
freezing (most of the time :-) through last winter.

I feed weekly with Phostrogen during the summer and autumn and that's all, just 
make sure they get enough sun and don't freeze.

-- 
David Sinfield
The truth is that life is hard and dangerous.
                                      Joyce Carey.