Hot to Pot

Now I know you've both been perched on the edge of your seats all week in anticipation of a chilli update. wait no longer avid reader!

I fucking love charts

That sweet chart was found in the interwebs, and you know what that means; undeniable proof of the superiority of the Bhut Jolokia also known as the Ghost chilli. Hey, if the Wikipedia page (opens in a new window) for this chilli has a section titled "As a weapon", you can assume they aren't to be trifled with, custard would curdle at the thought. 

The plants themselves are quite spectacular, if you are into that sort of thing. They are a vivid, emerald green and look lush even with just a few leaves. The seeds took around 21-28 days to germinate which is peculiar as I had them in a nice warm environment. Most chillies like warm conditions for germination (28-32 Celsius) then a cooler growing temperature (25-30 Celsius). It may have been that the soil temperature was not as high as the ambient temperature was which is what I measure. I also have tried to keep humidity at around 50% by placing a tray of water in the box to evaporate. I have a humidifier on its way, so I will waterproof the box by lining it with Mylar and keep the humidity right up for the orchid house-mates. Pro tip: filling a tray of pebbles with water and placing the plants on the pebbles makes for a really humid environment. 

The jiffy pots aren't too much bigger really, but anything will do for now.

     

After making a gumby e-Bay purchase of a stack of 50mm jiffy pots and trays instead of 80-120mm pots, I decided to plant the larger two seedlings into some spare pots I had, and the rest into the small jiffy pots. The pots are the biodegradable ones I mentioned a while ago, a great feature is that you can just re-pot as-is without disturbing precious roots. Any way, most of the chillies received a minor space upgrade with the largest two going to larger pots until I can afford another Bunnings trip. As it turns out, Bunnings actually does take that money from your credit card.

Naturally it was a raging success. I gave them a big drink and some Seasol (a great seaweed-based liquid fertiliser) and will leave them outside to dry off a bit before putting them back into the grow box. You can see they are really healthy and starting to take off a bit. This variety is very slow-growing generally and it will be a while before I see any fruit setting, possibly not for 18 months, though here's hoping, could the chillies bear fruit before my studies do? Stay tuned!  

 - Alex