Got home yesterday to find a package from Moll in Baltimore. She's the artist and chilli grower extraordinaire with a penchant for exotic varieties.
In the package were:
Hot Thai Dragons
Trinidad Chocolate Congo (came with a skull and crossbones warning for heat)
Serranos (crackling effect common to this variety
Here in the flat, I have neither room or expertise like Moll and outside a lack of decent sunshine which adversely affects my meagre collection of chilli plants and the babbies (the carnivorous plants). Even with their glorious summers, Moll has a tinfoil lined room where she winters her chilli farm, there's devotion.
I mentioned to Darlo my sorrow at how they are all struggling this year and how I hope I can get one of those miniature greeenhouses next spring.
She told me she'd seen them half price in Wilko, so I've bitten the bullet and was down there at 8am this morning. Half price is thirteen quid by the way and this really should do the trick.
I'll have to tie it to the balcony, as it gets a bit windy up here.
The babbies will be so excited. They will be going into winter dormancy soon and you have to keep them below 12 degrees c which can be difficult indoors. A bit of cold weather even frost isn't fatal to them, but when we had minus figures last winter, you will recall I was out there bringing them and the chillies indoors at night, but a sudden drop took its toll on two pitchers and one Venus flytrap.
This will afford some protection.
Then (provided we all live to see it, there's next spring. I will have seeds from some of those chillies above and a few I have in reserve. I shall be planting out like a good un and the warmth this provides will help with propagation.
I shall also be getting some long planting boxes and want something called meadow mix, which I have seen growing around town, outside the law courts down the road for example. Really nice colours.
Cor wait til next spring
Nice photos! Look at those stems, still really fresh.
Posted by: Molly Goatwax | September 03, 2012 at 10:41 AM