Windowsill Grow 24/02/2018

Hi everyone,

This is my first year attempting to grow chillis properly. I live in North Wales so I am going to be doing an indoor grow on a south facing windowsill, the room temperature is usually between 20-25 degrees celcius. I have chosen the following compact varieties for space reasons as they will remain in pots :

Apache F1 - Prairie Fire - Pretty Purple

I bought these seeds from South Devon Chilli farm as the ones I bought last year from the garden centre weren't very good. I still have 2 of those plants (was a bag of mixed seed so they could be any of the following Habanero caribbean red, orange, caribbean antillais or scotch bonnet burkina yellow)

I've started 6 of each seed in an unheated propagator with a cover, in multi purpose compost which I've added perlite to (70% soil 30% perlite). I have a double radiator so have folded a towel and placed the propagator on top of it to heat it and I started them on 24/02/2018. when it is starting to dry out I've been filling the outer tray with about an inch of water (tap water left uncovered for 24 hours at room temp) and letting the soil wick it up for about 10 minutes then pouring the excess water out.

It has now been 8 days and 3 of the Apache have broken the soil. I'll wait until the majority of them have sprouted and will move them over to the windowsill to try and stop them stretching for light.

I have also placed 3 of each seed into a weak tea solution for 8 hours (they had all sunk by this point) placed them in damp tissue, bagged them up and have put them in a container in the airing cupboard. I wanted to see which of the above methods are the quickest to germinate each variety.

My two older plants were started last year in August, have been trimmed down and topped and I'm feeding them with Chilli Focus as per the instruction (5ml per litre of water) one of them is starting to show flower buds. When I trimmed them I moved them into larger pots with fresh compost and after a few days initial shock they appear to be doing well again.

I plan on feeding all of the plants with chilli focus (5ml per litre for growing, 10ml per litre for flowering) and will update as they grow.

If anyone has any questions then ask away.

 

[Trident chilli]

Nice healthy plants

 

[Chilidude]

Those bigger plants look really nice.

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Hello everyone,

I started 9 seeds of each variety and now have 8 apache, 6 Pretty purple and 7 Prairie fire. They germinated between 8 and 13 days and i didn't find the tea and towel method any quicker than the covered propagator I had on the radiator.

They are about 3 weeks old (including germination time) and have been on the windowsill since the cotyledons have opened out. I've continued bottom watering and there don't appear to be any issues. I've got a desk fan on low to help with air circulation and to hopefully strengthen the stems. I'm planning on burying a few of the stems deeper when I transplant them.

The first picture are the Apache, second are the Pretty Purple and the third Prairie fire.

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Here are my other 2 plants. I've topped them when they were starting to show buds forming as I want them to grow more before trying to fruit.

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Hello everyone,

Out of everything I germinated I now have 6 Apache, 4 Pretty purple and 2 Prairie Fire. It has been 43 days since I planted the seeds. Due to the weather being temperamental I have bought a small set of lights. I put them under from 7pm to 10pm when the sun is dying down and then back on the windowsill until the following night.

http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=263506695582&category=20546&pm=1&ds=0&t=1523106251412&cspheader=1

They seem to be doing well, I'm feeding the once a week with Chilli Focus (5ml per Litre) I'm top feeding all the ones in the black pots and bottom feeding the ones in the other pots as the roots are now coming through.

The ones in the double cups look like they are doing better than the ones in just the soil even though they are being fed and treated exactly the same, look at the 2 Prairie fire for instance. I think I'll just use the double cup method in future.

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Here are my other 2 plants. I've trimmed some of the larger leaves off to let more light through to the bottoms. They are both now showing buds and one even has a flower. I'll probably just leave the to it now instead of topping them any further.

The plant that is flowering has what I think is oedema. It's only on the newer growth at the top of the plant and it doesn't appear to be causing any issues. I've cut back watering/fertilizing them (chilli focus 10ml per litre) until they are starting to wilt to ensure its not due to overwatering.

 

[Chilidude]

Chilis will not set fruit if they are not ready or there is not enough light. I stopped topping my c.chinense because it would delay the growing for 2 weeks minimum and that could be fatal in my season. C. chinense have the natural ability to grow bushy, when it start to flower so topping is pretty much not needed.

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Chilis will not set fruit if they are not ready or there is not enough light. I stopped topping my c.chinense because it would delay the growing for 2 weeks minimum and that could be fatal in my season. C. chinense have the natural ability to grow bushy, when it start to flower so topping is pretty much not needed.

I'll just leave them alone then and see how they go. I still don't know what varieties they are out of that mixed Caribbean bag so it would be nice to find out.

 

[Devv]

Good luck with your grow this season

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Thank you and you too!

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Hi everyone,

The plants are now 71 days old. I gave half of what I had away so now have 3 Apache, 2 pretty Purple and 1 Prairie fire.

I've moved them into the final pots today. They have started flowering and I think a chilli may be developing on one of the apache.

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Here are my other 2 plants. They are now 277 days old. They are putting out plenty of flowers but still dropping most of them.

There is what I think is a chilli developing on the plant that had the oedema. You can see it on the bottom of the leaves and some slight browning. It only seems to be on that one section of the plant though. I've cut right back on the watering and its seems fine so I'm not worried.

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Hello everyone,

The plants are now 100 days old and seem to be coming along pretty well. I've transplanted them into the final pots now and after I took these pictures have put them in a pop up 4 tier greenhouse so they're getting plenty of sun and light.

As you can see there are a fair few chillis growing now, I'm just waiting for them to ripen.

I've pollenated one of the apache flowers with Pretty purple and vice versa. They are both growing so will be something for me to mess around with next year.

Apache :

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Pretty Purple :

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Prairie Fire :

 

[WindowsillGrower]

Here is my other plant which is now 306 days old. I decided to plant it out in the flower bed as it just seemed to have come to a standstill.

I wasn't really expecting much to happen if anything but it seems to have helped. There are a few chillis now growing, I still don't know exacty what type it is but at least its finally fruiting!