Feeling Chilli?

It's time to turn up the heat. As chilli peppers have a long growing time before fruiting and ripening, they need to be started early.

I only included chilli's in my growing plans two years ago and I've never had trouble producing fruits from plants on the kitchen windowsill. This year I'm stepping up production as I've gone for 5 varieties and I'm going try some of them outside in growbags, in a sheltered spot at home.

Although a high temperature is required for germination, I don't have a heated propagator and mine have always started well enough. I use small margarine tubs - as I only need a couple of plants for each variety, using a whole seed tray for each of the five varieties seems a bit lavish.


Earlier in the month I brought in some seed compost from the shed - no seed is going to like cold January compost. I propped it up against a radiator in the spare room for a week or so (on an old piece of lino to save any hysterics from the wife).

Once sown in the tubs, I lightly water and cover them with a plastic freezer bag. This helps maintain warmth, moisture and humidity and I place them in the boiler cupboard, which is the warmest place in the house.

Then, once germination has started, I'll move them to a light windowsill and pot them on once two true leaves have formed.

This year's varieties can be found in my 2014 seed list HERE

Sweetcorn And Desperate Parsnips

Back with the veggies, I've finally got around to sowing my sweetcorn.

I know I'm later than some, but I tend to find that early sowings slow up once they are transplanted. Mine may go in the ground later, but they take off straight away and usually catch up the early birds. The other drawback of getting them in the ground too early, is that they are more vulnerable to slug and snail attacks while they sit there in the (usually) wetter part of spring.

Mine are sown in my homemade paper pots (as used for my French climbing beans) so that the roots don't get disturbed when transplanting later in the season.

To help with germination I rehydrate the seed overnight. I simply get an old Flora tub (other buttery spreads are available), line it with some doubled-up kitchen roll, and pour some water in. Not so that it's swilling about, just so that the paper becomes totally saturated. I then place the seeds on the wet paper and leave for 24hrs before sowing.

This is the only seed I treat in this way. I've read about people germinating their parsnip seed prior to sowing, but I've never had a problem with parsnips. I stick mine staright in the ground - this year they went in on April 8 and they were coming up quite nicely when I was down the allotment last week.

Sometimes I think we can make things too complicated. At the end of the day, seeds are desperate to grow. It's what they do. Only the poorest of conditions will stop them.