Kitchen Garden Forum

On the local market yesterday I bought over 50 Scotch Bonnet chillies for £1. As I tried growing them last year and out of 3 plants and 6 months of tlc I ended up with 4 chillies, this was a good deal.

I decided to dry them overnight using my new food dehydrator but the smell of the capsaicin was a killer. I hit on the idea of putting the dehydrator in the greenhouse and found that because it chucks out a lot of hot air, it also acted as a greenhouse heater. Brilliant or what? My thermostatic greenhouse heater didn't kick in unless I turned it right up.

I only wish that the majority of stuff I'll want to dry could be done in the Spring and not the Summer. Is it possible to dry raspberries which have been frozen and defrosted or would they be too mushy?

You sure are one clever person Chantal, i don't ever know whats coming next.

You could try the raspberries, but I don't think they'll work. Stick them in a smoothie instead!

Chantal - it would be interesting to know if the smell of the capsaicin in your greenhouse also had the power to kill off whitefly as well as humans! If so, it might be worth growing lots of extra chillis, just to dry out regular small batches of them and ward off the plagues of these little perishers from which many of us seem to be suffering.

Dear Primrose you might be on to something here, i wonder if it could be a deterrent to whitefly or the like.
Maybe chilli powder on an incense burner, if it works Primrose you get all the credit.
Now i don't suppose i will get any whitefly to try it out.

You can have some of mine OH - the extra heat over the last few days has resulted in prolific numbers in my tunnels.

I know I've just got to wait for the natural predators to find them, but spring is always a time to keep you on your toes, wondering whether it will be this year that the whitefly finally decimate the over-wintered pelargoniums and fuschias. Usually, I get to the point of thinking that it's all going to be lost and then the cavalry arrive and everything's alright!

Dear Tigger, you do seem to be having some awful bad luck with your wildlife this year.
Are you going to try the incense burner with chilli powder on it.

I'm going to try the dehydrator with chillies in it!

I am so p**sed off with whitefly this winter. Quite apart from my indoor plants, I have two big pots of tenderly raised basil plants on my kitchen window sill which despite various deterrents are absolutely swamted in whitefly. I've also sprayed them with water and put them outside in the sunshine to try and rid them of the problem and that hasn[t worked with., That is why I wondered whether the chilli fumes might be a deterrent. Nothing else seems to have worked and chillis do seem to have some pretty potent effects, at least on humans.

I have one or two greenfly in my greenhouse but no whitefly so I can't tell you if it works. The smell was pretty strong though so it's worth a go as you get something out of it even if you still have the whitefly.

Perhaps Compo should try doing this in his house.