Heading back to melbs today. Happy with how much shit I pulled out of the garden and no injuries (that cold ocean does wonders for inflammation). Will be leaving the chillos to fend for themselves for a week. True leaves getting a bit bigger! Will have to think about next steps soon.
Which brings us to the monday rrave.. Come on chillos stayinit
Chillies love heat to grow, and so this time of year in Melbs sucks for them, especially at night because of the weather.
As I said in a below comment I'm going to have upto 140 plants to give away for free towards mid October. Lots of them are hotter than Jalapenos though, but there are some on the milder side.
But defo start more yourself, you can never have too many plants, especially ones that you can eat!
Do you find that anything over wintered doesn't produce as much fruit, or is it just me being rubbish at managing my N & P balances?
Also if you want to add some variety, I've got 200 cells on the go and only room for 60 plants (built in redundancy) so I should have spares to give away.
Started late as Ms. Indisin needed us to go to Bali and so they haven't sprouted yet.
200 damn! Always up for a chilli swap :) Are you putting in ground or pots?
I've found the habs and cayenne don't produce the same amount or grow back as big. The thais seem like troopers. Overwinter very well, decent heat and have a longer season (although start a bit later).
I don't have a car so it would be pick up only and I'm starting from seed and even with 3 seeds per cell, with exotics and unstable varieties you know how that goes... So 200 rapidly becomes 90 and I wanna keep 60. Or 200 becomes 200 and I'm up shit creek and need more friends haha.
Pots and in true Northcote hipster style - glass jars, which surprisingly work great for smaller varieties. I've found that pequins for example thrive in tiny jars or pots and look gorgeous littered around the house. Although... I have had to release ladybirds inside before to deal with aphids lol.
My Thai ones seem to only produce about 25% the following year so I think I'm going to give up on over wintering unless I try and bonchi again. Everything is from scratch this year as I couldn't look after them last season, barring one indoors one which refuses to die (some purple exotic and bird eye level heat).