Growing chillis

[Michael Chris]

This has me rather amused. I have never grown chile. I don't have anywhere to do it, and I am absolutely certain that it would not even come close to the stuff that you can get at the harvest. Ohhhhh the smell of roasting chile. Man, I'm getting seriously hungry.

 

[Franklin]

This has me rather amused. I have never grown chile. I don't have anywhere to do it, and I am absolutely certain that it would not even come close to the stuff that you can get at the harvest. Ohhhhh the smell of roasting chile. Man, I'm getting seriously hungry.

They are showing a lot of passion for it. It's led me to the conclusion that "chile" is a front, and this discussion really refers to growing something else.

 

[Geckothan]

Had to find the other camera to take these, cause my phone camera just doesn't cut it for close ups (doesn't even have a macro mode).

Chilli #1 has popped out of the ground, but the seed case is still stuck on, I'm gonna give it a day to sort itself out then I'll try removing it manually.

Chilli #2 is starting to pop out of the ground, again with the seed case on.

Also, I forgot to water the basils for 20 hours and they're not dead yet despite their soil being bone dry. I might transplant this one soon even though it's only got one set of true leaves. I didn't fill the cell all the way up, and it dries out so fast that I can't even leave them alone for a day.

This one however, has plenty of time to go before being transplanted. The soil stays moist for ages. I was actually a little worried about this one, because I overwatered it a couple of days ago and it held the moisture for 2 days before finally drying out, and in that time one of the new leaves turned yellow at the tip, but now it seems to be catching up to the other one.

 

[Geckothan]

Bit of an update. I manually removed the seed case from chilli #1 and in the process ripped the ends of the cotyledons, but they've been going for a couple of days and haven't died yet so I guess I didn't mortally wound it. Chilli #2 is pretty much dead, I guess I just didn't plant it deep enough because it was emerging from the soil without a proper stem from the looks of it, and the little green appendage to the seed pictured in the previous post is brown now, so I'm ready to throw it away. However, I've planted another chilli, which I have named "chilli #2.5", and this time I've just thrown it straight in a 4" pot with some cling film over the top until it sprouts, because those little 2" cells are a bugger to water, they go bone dry overnight literally.

As far as the basils go, I've moved basil #1 into a 4" pot and it's doing beautifully, second set of true leaves has fully formed and they are about half the size of the first set now. Basil #2 (the one that had the sick leaf tip and stunted growth) on the other hand, is completely dead. When I woke up one morning a couple of days ago, the cotyledons had turned purple and gone droopy and the true leaves had closed up. I gave it a thorough watering and by the next day it had picked up and I could see another set of leaves starting to form, but by the next day it was even droopier than before, and at this point I decided to just scrap it instead of trying to revive it again. Considering it perked up after being watered, I was thinking maybe it was just dehydrated, but I watered it just as much as it's counterpart and that was absolutely thriving. I'm probably going to plant another basil tomorrow to replace the dead one, cause my mum wanted one to put on her windowsill. It's not like I don't have an envelope of 500 seeds to spare.

I'll upload some new photos tomorrow maybe.

 

[Holdfast]

Basil is surprisingly hardy. I sometimes keep a few pots of herbs on the kitchen windowsill during the spring & summer months. 18 months ago, I left the basil pot there right through the winter. I watered it occasionally, but fully expected it to die in the cold. Most of it did indeed turn brown and die, but one stem survived... and in spring it started regrowing strongly. Once it recovered a bit, I snipped a large shoot off the side, removed any low leaves off it and used it as a cutting and replanted it directly into the soil. No extra fertiliser/food or "bone powder". It wilted a bit at first, then took root and grew into another strong stem. I repeated that process several times over the spring, and by summer, had a full pot of basil again, all growing strongly.

 

[Geckothan]

Perhaps I could try resurrecting it again, but it's just a seedling and it didn't even have a fully grown set of true leaves, and the cotyledons were pretty much dead, so it seems futile at this point. Might as well just plant another seeing as I've got more seeds than I'll ever use and they only take a couple of days to sprout.

 

[Jadzia]

One seed isn't going to yield very much basil, Geckothan. You may be better off sewing between 10-100 seeds, and that would give you enough for culinary use depending on how much you use.

A nice herb to grow is Oregano. It's pleasant to see growing, has a comforting fragrance, and lots of tiny flowers in the summer. Also it can survive our winters, repels parasitic insects, and over the years you'll find new little plants have seeded all over the place It's not an invasive herb though; it just seeds well.

 

[gturner]

Now that your chilis have sprouted, it's time to start conditioning them. Screaming obsenities at them helps build up their heat, as does abusive physical treatment such as whipping them with a lash.

I learned these tricks from a restaurant commercial about raising angry chilis, and it seems to make sense, much like raising bonsai trees.