Kitchen Garden Forum

Firstly, I would like to say hello to everyone on the KG forum. I have subscribed to KG for a few years and its articles and tips have been a huge help since getting my allotment 5 years ago - there's always something new to learn.

I over wintered my chilli plants (Dorset Naga), which I also did last year successfully. However, whilst this years look healthy, they have already started flowering. Does anyone know if I should remove all of the flowers as its so early in the season or leave them on and see what happens?

Many thanks in advance.

When I have done this, they usually abort and drop off anyway until it is warmer and there are pollinators about. I'd just let them do their thing.

Dorset Naga - I grew the chocolate version once. Makes a serious hot sauce

Thanks for the reply. It looks like you know your chilli plants - I may have to ask some advice on drying them later this year ( which was a complete disaster last year)!

Paula

I would let them flower and possibly give them a dilute liquid feed of Tomorite to help them on their way. I have overwintered chilli plants successfully and got an early crop, but I normally prune them fairly hard back after the autumn cropping, scrape out a little of the compost if they have become potbound and add a little fresh compost at the bottom of the pot to give them a good start when they start regenerating.

I don't know whether your pots are indoors on a window ledge or in a greenhouse. The main enemy at this time of year can be whitefly attacks which can weaken the plants to the point when flowers drop off. They don't seem to need insects to pollinate them. My Hungarian Wax chilli flowers started to develop new tiny fruits around the end of February.

I tried drying them on one occasion but they went musty. Now I freeze them and use them individually or cook a lot of them down into a chilli paste for convenience which is kept refrigerated.

Not all chillies can be easily dried. Thin walled chillies like birds eye types and cayenne like ones are easy, strung over a radiator they will dry well if fully ripe. Fleshly ones are less successful - the Mexican types mulato and ancho sometimes go mouldy inside, but are worth a try. Others like pasilla and jalapeno can be smoked to make Pasilla de Oaxaca and Chipotle respectively, of which I am very fond.

Hi, it's been a month or so, and you were right - the flowers have dropped on their own. I potted them on with some fresh feed and all of the plants (doreset naga, lemon drop, tobasco and some others I can't remember the name of) appear to be doing better than ever. I'll keep you updated!

chilli ? so interesting .

Hi, well it's a few months on now so I thought I'd share the results. The over wintered chilli plants have done brilliantly and we've been harvesting lots of fresh (and very hot) chillies. Now all I need to do is try and dry them. I think I'm going to try splitting them and putting them in the oven on the defrost setting ( my husband who's the cook prefers dried than frozen) - any other successful drying ideas for naga's would be much appreciated?

Anyway, photo below to show one of five plants. Will definitely try for a third year with them!

Paula

Well done, that looks a pretty successful crop. I've only ever over wintered plants for one year but I suppose if you prune them back after harvesting and repot with fresh compost there',s no reason why you can't keep them going for longer. I find mine tend to yield to whitefly attacks in winter eventually.

We freeze ours as we pick them and then when we have a decent sized batch, turn them into chilli paste so we can just add some to recipes when we need to, rather than risk chopping them up and risking the "accidentally rubbing an eye" syndrome.

Your chilli plant looks amazing!

I'm looking at over wintering this years plants - it's the 1st time I'll be over wintering chillis.... Any tips?

As soon as they've finished cropping, prune plants back fairly hard, down to the lowest viable shoots? Pull the plant out of the pot, pull off at least a third of the old compost from around the bottom and around the sides You can also remove the fibrous roots in this old compost

Put some fresh compost in the base of the pot, replace the plant and pack in new compost down the sides. Water well, put the plant in a frost free environment snd then keep the compost barely damp. Check regularly for whitefly. New shoots will slowly grow snd you may start getting new flowers in January or February. At this point give s light liquid feed. Some early flowers may drop off without forming fruit at this point but later ones will start to do so as light and temperature levels start to rise. Don't forget that for this second yesr some of the compost wll be old snd devoid of nutrients so feed a lttle more regularly. i push a few chicken manure pellets down the sides of the pot to counteract this problem.

I've just gone out to start pruning my chilli and pepper plants, but quite a lots of them are still in flower / throwing up little fruit. Should I still prune now (for over wintering) or am I way too early?

Where are your plants now? In a greenhouse? I don't think they should be left outdoors any longer now night time temperatures are dropping .
If you have enough ripe chillies and peppers to keep you going I'd prune them back now. It won't really hurt though to wait until end November, if the plants are protected, to see if the fruits will grow enough to be worthwhile picking, although they will obviously grow and ripen more slowly now with lower temperatures. Don't forget to keep feeding lightly if fruit are still growing.

You may find that the small fruits don't seem to be doing much. If that's the case, sacrifice them and prune hard back. My last chillii fruits, now on my lounge window, are virtually ready for picking , but whitefly is taking over, so as I have plenty of them I'm not going to bother pruning and over wintering them this year.

Hi, cut mine back last weekend to about 3 - 4 inches. Gave them some new top compost, bit of feed and water and brought them inside to sleep for the winter.

I took off all fruit that looked like it might have some kick, but the smaller ones went in the composter.

What's the worse that can happen ....... Eeek!

I ended up drying the Naga's quickly on the radiator after sniping them with the scissors - seemed to do the trick and the jar they are in now smells amazing.

Fingers crossed they wake up happy in March...... Will up date!

So, only one of the over wintered chilli plants survived from 2015. It's sat in the kitchen window with lots of very small red chillies on it. The others got sick at a very early stage and I made the decision that they should go and visit the composter.

So I tried a few new varieties:

A red cherry chilli (free from T&m) - great plant, loads of chillies and lovely flavour. They were left to do there own thing at the allotment and thrived.

Pepper hot mix - did really well in pots on the patio. Loads of hot chillies (although all are yellow rather than mixed). I need to figure out the best way to dry them - has anyone tried to dry these?

Orange wonder - three plants all in pots, two have lots of orange chillies. One however, looked fine, lots of flowers but not one chilli (picture below). What do you think the cause is? Same pack of seed, same grow time and position etc... (The leaves have only just started to go a bit yellow).

Pawty