July Update

You'd be forgiven for thinking I'd fallen off the face of the earth!  When I started this blog I thought I would have more time to dedicate to regular reports and updates.  The main reason for the lack of time stems from a severe case of over-enthusiasm (planting too many seeds) and, whilst being pleasantly surprised at how many grew into beautiful plants, I failed to account for how much time and care I could realistically give to each and every one.   It's been a steep learning curve.  Next year I am going to resist the temptation to sow every seed in the pack, of each and every variety I plan to grow, and shift my focus to tending fewer plants with greater care.

All that said, it's been an interesting season so far.  Pleasant surprises and bitter disappointments have occurred along the way; however at this late stage, it's perhaps more prudent to be thankful for what we are currently enjoying from the garden, and move on from the disappointments in the hope that next year will bring somewhat better results.

An unusually warm April benefited my chili plants and we are enjoying a range of different shapes, sizes, flavours, and intensity of heat from all of the different varieties. I'm including a few pictures below:

Habaneros

We have yet to use any of these, so I can't report on the flavour as yet.  If they continue as they have been doing (and ripen to a nice orange!) I plan to make a homemade hot sauce - hot sauce is a favourite in our house!  Habaneros peppers are much too hot to realistically use for much else, unless of course you were prepared to spend a lot of time chopping them up into minute pieces, and removing all of the seeds before adding to your dish.  Hot sauce it is....unless anyone can convince me otherwise.

I appreciate it's a bit difficult to see the fruits among the foliage, and my photographic skills are fairly limited, but it serves a purpose anyway.

I also have a habaneros in my large plant house outside, and although it's set a few fruits, it appears to be struggling in comparison to the ones indoors.  The big surprise with the Habaneros is the one I gave to my neighbours, Lisa and Steve; it's doing really well outside on their patio!  I was quite jealous.

Cayennes

The cayennes were a pain at first,and now they are positively thriving.  Last year I tried to grow cayennes, but I didn't get a single fruit, and lost many of the plants when they were quite young.  My expectations for this year were therefore quite low, but I'm really glad I tried.  I have three plants on my office window, two of which I intend to overwinter this year, in the hope that they will do even better next year.   Here are some I picked today:

The cayennes we've used so far have been delicious; not too intense, but lots of flavoursome heat.

Jalapenos

A similar story to the cayennes: lost a lot of last year's plants when they were young, and had no fruits.  This year, the results are quite different:

And the Jalapeno plant below is one that's just started coming to life:

I don't know what to use the Jalapenos for, other than as a topping on a pizza, so I'll have to look up some ideas on the net.

One of the varieties I've been excited about this year is the Ring of Fire - as the name suggests, it's very fiery! So far, I'm doing quite well with one plant, another is coming into its own slowly; but two of my plants came under attack from White Fly.  By the time the infestation was noticeable it was too late to spray the plants because the flowers were open.  I toyed with the idea of putting them outside to see if natural predators would sort the problem out; however, they can't tolerate the outside at all, and it was too risky to put them near anything else.   Having pulled half my hair out because of infestations of Aphids and Spider Mites over the last couple of months (and finally enjoying the fact that I'd cleared everything up by spraying!) I wasn't prepared to take a risk with White Fly. I've recently learned that White Fly can withstand spraying...I hope that particular little nasty isn't going to be problematic to any future plants of this variety.

Here are some pictures of the RofF:

That's enough of the indoor chili plants for today! I'll be back with pictures and details of the Fresnos, Cherry Chillies, Super Hots, Paper Lanterns, Joes's Longs, and Aji Limons.  But before I finish off for today I'll leave you with a picture of my strawberry planter (now serving as a strawberry/marigold/spinach/herb planter!).  I'm so glad I could make use of it; I think it looks rather pretty:

I also have plenty of pictures to take outside, including tomatoes, sweet peppers, aubergines, courgettes and marrows....

Where did February go??

Spring is most definitely in the air today - it must be if I've put laundry out on the line!

No tomato seeds sown as yet, but thinking about trying half a dozen or so if this weather looks set to continue.  Chilli seeds are in the airing cupboard (in the hope that they will germinate successfully) as they need constant warmth.  I don't have a heated propagator but I am thinking of buying one next year, depending on how my chilli growing goes this year.

The only other thing I have on the go at the moment are my seed potatoes; I've started the process of chitting them in readiness for planting in a couple of months.

Anyone interested in reading about my latest visit to The RSC, switch over to my blog at:

http://allthingsshakespeare.blogspot.com

I have much more to post on King Lear and will back track to Romeo and Juliet afterwards.

February already!

The arrival of February signals the beginning of chilli seed sowing!  Chillies can either surprise or disappoint you, and rarely are they what I would consider to be 'reliable', unless of course you have the room to house them in a lightbox, or if you have an unused warm room in the house where you can give them 16 hours of artificial light per day, until they can be potted on, hardened off and left to do their own thing. But don't let any of that worry you; if I can produce chilli plants of the quality I did last year (relying purely on natural light and heat, and being realistic in my expectations about the longevity of the season) then anyone can!  A challenge is a challenge, and in order to learn we must try and try again. 

You'd be amazed at the various set-ups people use in order to get them going a month or so earlier than 'normal'.  Here's a picture of one such set-up, taken from The Chilli King's website:

And a picture of his chilli growing lightbox!

You can't see very much in this picture, but the overall idea (or hope) is that by starting them off early and providing them with as much light and warmth as possible, they will have a longer and more bountiful season. But really, as you'll see from the picture below, you'd think it was cannibis some of them were growing! Personally, I don't fancy becoming so obsessive about chilli growing; I enjoy it, but I simply don't have enough time to give to one thing.  Tomatoes, beans, courgettes, brussels sprouts, garlic, onions, and a myriad of fruits, all need my attention too.  Ergo, what will be will be with the chillies!  When Martin reads this he'll say : "I'll remind you of that in a couple of months, when you're becoming obsessive again!"  He did have to remind me about becoming obsessive only last evening - I'd almost talked him into building a lightbox!!  Don't worry, it's not happening......not this year anyway. 

For amateurs like myself : Don't be put off by any of this lightbox and flourescent tubing business; it's not hard work to create your own happy chilli environment without the use of lightboxes, greenhouses and south-facing conservatories.  If this year is your first attempt, try to buy a young plant and leave the germinating until next year; that way you'll get a feel for how to look after them, and you can make notes (as I did) about how they respond to changes in temperature and environment, and what their watering and feeding requirements are etc.  If you're determined to try raising your own plants, choose an easy variety such as cayenne, razzmatazz, patio sizzlers (excellent for coping with coolish summers) or super hots (very heavy cropper).  All of these varieties are perfect for beginners as they have a good germination success rate, and I guarantee you'll be hooked when you see those beautiful jewels in amongst the striking foliage!

My chillies of last year are proof that (although they had a much shorter season) your plants can still yield a great many fruits by germinating them 4-6 weeks later than the die-hard chilli growers are doing.  I wish I'd photographed my plants, as some of them were excellent, but I had a few duds and non-starters too.  After giving half my plants away(!) I had 6 super hots - all yielding a vast amount of fruits.  All of my super hots were grown outside : 3 on the patio, 2 in the plant house, and 1 in a pot dug half way into the ground.  The plants on the patio were by far the the most attractive, with masses of beautiful foliage, and growing to a height of almost 2 feet - they bushed out rather a lot too.  Over half of the fruits ripened to a full and glorious red, but they were smaller than the fruits on the other plants.  The plants in the plant house also ripened (albeit earlier (early August)) with much hotter and more flavoursome fruits.  But the plant dug half way into the ground did very, very well indeed; this plant was against a south facing fence and so it had enjoyed reflected (and stored up) heat from the fence well into the evening. This plant gave us the hottest and finest chillies we've had this year.  I brought it indoors and put it on the kitchen windowsill in September, where it continued to flourish well into October.....What a shame I didn't know about overwintering (more on this later) - this plant would have been excellent to nurse back to life this Spring.

My razzmatazz peppers did very well too and, although they were much milder in heat, they were anything but bland in terms of flavour.  I had eight plants : 4 indoors on a window-sill, and 4 on the patio - I didn't have any room left in the plant house to house any of these! Both positons did very well, but the ones on the window-sill produced larger fruits (and earlier) and they ripened much quicker.  In fact the ones outside didn't have much success in terms of ripening, but went the distance once I'd picked them and let them ripen on the kitchen window-sill.  Prior to ripening, the razzmatazz peppers are a host of colours : oranges, yellows, creams, purples, greens, and even pinks!  The foliage was dark green and contrasted beautifully with the bright and uplifting colours of the peppers.  I'd like to do a few of these again this year. 

And finally, the paper lanterns...I can't say very much about these because (as I now know) I did everything wrong (boo-hooFothergill, they can be grown successfully on a "sunny patio". 

My first chilli plant was one I picked up at Wilkinsons in the early summer of 2009; it was a half dead little seedling all on its own, and they were selling it off at 75p.  I took it home and nursed it a bit and before long it had bloomed into a beautifully healthy plant bearing numerous fruits.  We were eating chillies for months, and the plant still looked healthy in October.  Now, if only I had known as much about chillies back then as I do now, I would have undertaken the process of 'overwintering', a method of pruning back your chilli plant and keeping it in a warm room with plenty of light over the winter.  I was amazed to learn about this recently and I hope to try my hand at saving a few of my own plants this year, depending on my success, of course.  I think that if you've had a healthy and vibrant plant (as I did that year) then it's a shame to banish it to the compost heap when you could see it make a comeback the following year.  Incidentally, the variety of chilli plant was Apache (an F1).  The fruits were amazing: colourful, fleshy and juicy; but the flavour was ok - just ok.  Martin and I like full, flavoursome hot chillies, and for this reason I stepped up my game last year.

And back to this year...I'm already biting my nails in angst at the thought of getting past the germination stage; I think that's the most difficult bit really.  One of these days I will invest in a heated propagator!  But for now, I'm trying to keep my expectations at a realistic level, hoping beyond all hope that I'll have 50% success - at least.  My chosen varieties for this year are:

Joe's Long
Ring of Fire
Aji Limon (these are so pretty I've included a picture; they also have a citrusy flavour!)

Cayenne
Habanero
Paper Lantern
Razzmatazz

I couldn't find any super hot seeds - everywhere seems to be sold out.  If anybody sees any on their travels...I'd be awfully grateful. 

Wish me luck.....

Comfrey

According to my latest gardening book acquisition - River Cottage Handbook No. 4: Veg Patch - comfrey is a gardener's best friend for feeding, mulching and composting.

Its roots drive deep into the soil and pull up (otherwise inaccessible) minerals to the surface - I'm hoping this might obviate the need to use so many chemical-laden feeds.  It's also referred to as a "natural fertiliser factory" which can be used in a number of ways.  It's excellent used as a mulch, or for preparing and fertilising the ground you're putting your potatoes into, and even for breaking down compost more effectively.  In fact, the only drawback I've uncovered is its ability to spread and grow rapidly, but if you choose your variety carefully, you can limit any potential problems with regard to its spreading.  The Bocking 14 (Russian variety) is available from Thompson Morgan, whose write-up (as follows) is very informative:

"Grow your own soil conditioner! Comfrey ‘Bocking 14’ contains high levels of basic NPK nutrients and because it is a sterile hybrid, it won’t self seed all over your garden.

The nutrient rich foliage of comfrey can be used as a compost activator, mulch, or soaked in barrels of water for 3 to 5 weeks to make a useful liquid feed for tomatoes and beans. Scatter the wilted leaves throughout potato trenches just before planting, to fertilise the crop and improve their flavour! Once established, this quick growing plant can be cut 3 or 4 times throughout the growing season, for a constant supply of nutrient rich, organic, comfrey fertiliser. Height: 100cm (40”). Spread: 75cm (30”).

Special Features: sun or semi shade"

 

Tomatoes, courgettes, and beans in particular, benefit from regular feeds of comfrey tea - comfrey leaves left to infuse in a bucket of water for a few days - and according to various reports on the internet, you'll have a "heftier harvest".  Fruiting plants are lifted when their leaves are sprayed with it, and roots are healthier when fed with its nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus that their growth depends on. 

It's also used medicinally, and it's actually quite pretty:

All this AND it attracts bees into the garden too.  

Here's a link to a very interesting website that can tell you pretty much everything there is to know about comfrey:

http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/comfrey/index.php 

 

 

Decision made!

I had a dilemma yesterday evening; a sudden dose of cold feet about growing 'different' varieties of tomatoes.  By the time Martin got home from work, I was holed up in my home office drowning in a sea of conflicting information about what grows best where, and how!

The problem was the Black Russians - despite a few fairly local people reporting average to good success, I had read many stories on the internet of "masses of foliage and not many fruits"; "large, mutant fruits taking everything from the plant"; and "taste was nothing special when considering how much of a headache they were to grow".  So, as you can imagine, I felt quite glum about the BR's, and did the usual thing: cursed the internet!! Martin to the rescue....He's much better at Googling things and finding the best information.  

After half an hour of contemplation I decided to stick to my original plan, if I could satisfy myself that they could be grown (with some success) outside.  There are so many websites dedicated to tomato growing, but they all seem to speak to the experienced grower, whereas my principal concern was whether or not they would grow outside.  Loads and loads of faffage about what to feed them, when to feed them, but nothing basic; nothing for the amateur.  It took my stumbling across an article in the Daily Telegraph to find the information I needed: greenhouse or outdoor growing? Both.  Hurrah!  At this point I was on information overload, and could probably recite every troubleshooting point known to the most serious of tomato growers!  I didn't care.  As long as a heated greenhouse wasn't essential, that was good enough for me. I grew three separate lots of cordon-type tomatoes outside (in gro-bags) last year, with excellent success.

All that said, I spent much of last night silently seething at how much time I'd spent searching for the answer to that most basic of questions.  Perusing some gardeners' forums yesterday, (Grow Your Own etc), I read many questions beginning: "This is probably a stupid question, but......".  It's like we're all afraid to ask an experienced gardener what must seem like an obvious question, for fear of looking stupid.  At least I can ask my parents-in-law....I think I'll have to set up an "Ask Allen" forum!

Anyway, on to the fun stuff.  The tomato choices have been made, the order has been submitted to Mr Fothergill, and there's no going back now.  Here are my choices for this year:

Black Russian - there isn't much more I can say about these, it's all been done.

Green Zebra - I talked about these in my post of 6th January.

Tigerella - I'm quite excited about these.  Large crops that grow well outside, and can cope with a slightly cooler climate. I like the stripes too. 

Sub-Arctic Plenty - the name says it all really, but here's Mr Fothergill's write-up:

"(Small Standard) As its name suggests, this will set fruit even in an unfavourable season when the weather stays cool after planting out. Masses of early, large, cherry-size fruits ripen quickly on the plant. Upset your neighbours and have the first outdoor tomatoes ready to pick! Determinate."

Sungold - I had excellent success with these last year, and they were by far the tastiest tomatoes!  We couldn't get enough of them.  They need staking up and are indeterminate, but the fruits are cherry-sized.  The colour is the most beautiful golden orangey-yellow - hence the name.  I hope they turn out as well as they did last year.  Definitely one to pass on to Allen to see how he likes them.

 Red Pear - I liked the look of these as soon as I saw them:

Don't they look beautiful?  I thought they'd make a nice change from the tumbling toms and garden pearls -  I grew loads of those last year and I think I'm ready for a new 'cherry' choice.  I will probably still do a few tumbling toms and garden pearls as back-up, but I'm trying not to buy any yellow tumbling tom seeds - Martin will have kittens if he has to eat cherry tomatoes every day for three months, as he did last year!  I haven't told him that I came across two packets of Minibel seeds from last year; they were ok - nothing much to write home about flavour-wise, but a result nonetheless.

And that's it for tomato choices for this year...wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it!!

ps All pictures have been taken from Mr Fothergill's site.

Morley in the snow

It's snowed all morning here; this is the view from our house:

I went out on my usual walk and it looks like we've had about 2" so far!!

My raspberries are looking rather sorry for themselves now; I'm glad I chose to put them in pots and bury the roots over the winter.

The Hottest Chilli in the World?

If you can get past the fact that this is a news item from 'The Sun' (insofar as one can ever describe any piece in the Sun as 'news' or even newsworthy) then it makes for interesting reading:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2916014/Worlds-hottest-chilli-and-comes-from-Grantham.html

Bhut Jolokia has long held the title of World's Hottest Chilli in most chilli fanatics' minds; but every now and then a serious contender comes along, and judging by the number of SHU's it definitely earns the title of 'contender'! 

All that said, what's the point in all that heat if there's no mention of flavour?

The seeds are here!!

An early walk this morning led me to our local Asda; browsing the aisles aimlessly, I saw rows and rows of seeds in all their colourful glory, brightening up an otherwise very dull morning.  I can't wait to get started now. 

Last year I grew some chillies in a pail that came with the seeds; it looked very pretty sitting on the patio and I've thought about getting another one.  What I saw in Asda this morning were tomato seeds, sold with a bright red pail...so I'm wondering if I should get one.  It's a little disappointing that the seeds are boring old cherry tomatoes and I think (after a much too plentiful crop last year!) that I'm quite over cherry tomatoes for now.  I'll no doubt do some cherry tomatoes this year, just not so many of the common or garden tumbling toms.  One intends to be a little more adventurous this year - variety, variety, and more variety!

Some of the varieties I'm interested in are as follows:

Black Russian - Beefsteak; purple to black skin; and reddish black flesh.  They tend to bear irregular sized fruits, but every article I've read about them includes a tribute to how tasty they are!  One of the reasons I'm attracted to Beefsteaks this year is the 'slicing' factor - my larger variety tomatoes of last year didn't slice very well and I wanted something that could stand up to being sliced.  But really, it's the colour that's done it for me - that and the fact that they're different, and it's a challenge!  I'm also assured (by my good friend Chris Rollings) that they are suited to the West Yorkshire climate - his mother has grown them successfully for the last ten years in Hebden Bridge.  I've taken the picture from Mr Fothergill's website. 

Green Zebra - I am reliably informed by Mrs Betty Pitchard, that these are one of the easiest varieties of tomato to grow.  They can get to 2-3 inches and start off green, turning yellow, but maintaining their green stripe - Betty has supplied me with the photograph below.  They have a very sweet and distinctive flavour and look very pretty mixed with red varieties in a salad!  I think I'll definitely be trying these ones, and passing a plant or two to Allen, my father-in-law, to see how he gets on with them.  An important point to note is that they don't go fully yellow, so pick them when they are just turning. 

Last Year's Sungolds were a great success, so I will most likely grow some more of those; although I am tempted to vary the theme if I can - more research on yellow tomatoes at a later date!

Happy New Year!

Last year I grew five varieties of chillies and five varieties of tomatoes.  Keeping my expectations to a minimum, I was very pleasantly surprised by not only the yield, but also the appearance and flavour of the fruits.  The overall result was overwhelming; and we were eating tomatoes until mid-October, and finished our last remaining chillies just before Christmas. 

This year I'm hoping to build on that success, and having gained much knowledge and hands-on experience of how to give chillies and tomatoes the best chance of growing to their full potential, I'm itching to get started. I began with a phone call to my in-laws (whose gardening knowledge far outweighs my own) to see just how early I can get the propagators out, and sow my first seeds.  For the last couple of years I've left the propagating until about mid-March; having no heated greenhouse I've made do with heat from the sunlight coming through my kitchen window; but January and February aren't exactly the best months to rely on such a method!  So, whilst it's convenient for Allen (my father-in-law) to get started with sowing his seeds of choice, it's best that I stick with March to kick things off. 

At present I'm flicking through catalogues and searching online for chilli and tomato seeds, hoping to find more unusual and interesting varieties, suitable for growing in West Yorkshire, and without the aid of a heated greenhouse.  Last year I was surprised at how well my Super-Hot chillies grew on my patio - in fact the ones I grew outside were superior to the ones I grew under-cover in my planthouse!  Obviously, the ones I grew indoors were the best; they ripened beautifully and were blisteringly hot and flavoursome.  But some of the ones I grew outside ripened well, and their flavour was rivalled only by the Paper Lanterns I grew indoors on our bedroom window. 

Whilst trawling the internet for advice about growing chillies, I came across this interesting link:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/PepperswithscovilleCentralMarketHoustonTX.JPG

The Scoville Scale measures the heat and piquancy of chillies.  The scale is named after an American Chemist, Wilber Scoville, who came up with a method of measuring the capsaicinoid content of chilli peppers.  He named his method  the Scoville Organoleptic Test, and below is an extract from Wikipedia which explains the test:

"In Scoville's method, an alcohol extract of the capsaicin oil from a measured amount of dried pepper is added incrementally to a solution of sugar in water until the "heat" is just detectable by a panel of (usually five) tasters; the degree of dilution gives its measure on the Scoville scale. Thus a sweet pepper or a bell pepper, containing no capsaicin at all, has a Scoville rating of zero, meaning no heat detectable. The hottest chilis, such as habaneros and nagas, have a rating of 200,000 or more, indicating that their extract must be diluted over 200,000 times before the capsaicin presence is undetectable. The greatest weakness of the Scoville Organoleptic Test is its imprecision, because it relies on human subjectivity. Tasters taste only one sample per session."

I thought the picture was quite funny!