Chillies

I bought this big red chilli on the market - it's a variety with a heat moderate enough to be eaten raw like bell peppers. Inside, there are loads of seeds that I'll grow in pots in the greenhouse.

I scraped the hard seeds out into a small dish and set them aside to dry.

Unlike the sweet, mild flesh, the seeds and pith inside are fiery hot - as I discovered when I rubbed my eye later.

I filled some plastic module pots with multipurpose compost, watered them and dropped a couple of seeds into a shallow hole made in the surface of each of 12 pots.

(The other 12 pots contain my tomato seeds).

I covered the sown seeds with plastic film - this will keep the compost moist until the seeds start to germinate.

I placed the pots on a tray and put them on a warm window sill - hopefully, they'll show some signs of growth soon.

09 April 2010 - a good germination rate - I planted one or two seeds in each module and at least one came up in each.

I'm keeping the cover off now to prevent the seedlings going leggy or too soft.

03 May 2010 - The seedlings are getting big now - I'll need to find some pots to plant them up into, but for starters, I'm planting a couple through holes melted in a big plastic bottle. (I did something similar with a couple of my tomato plants)

I'll hang the bottle up from the roof of my greenhouse, to save on shelf space in there..

20 May 2010 - They've made terrific progress and are now all looking a bit desperate to be potted on or planted out.

As I have plenty of plants, I'm going to try a few outdoors, a couple in big pots and maybe one or two directly in the greenhouse soil.

So I've planted four modules out alongside my potatoes - I'll cover them with a tent made from fleece to keep the wind and cold off them until they get settled in.

Nearly all of the planting modules have two plants in them, because I originally dropped in two seeds expecting more not to germinate, but they nearly all did. I probably should try to separate them or pinch out the smaller of the two seedlings, but I'm just going to let them grow like that - it can't be too bad (and it must happen a lot like that in nature)