Last year, I was all very conscientious. By New Year’s Day, I had sown both chillies and tomatoes. The latter, died, as they were sown a bit too early. I had to resow. With the chillies, I was able to get them to the stage where they formed a second pair of true leaves. I had potted them on just after they had gone past their baby seed leaves. Then, I had also sown them in yogurt pots.

This year, the varieties are the same. You can see what I have sown in one of the images. A different variable is that they are being sow into those paper pots that were made. Dampened, they go into the heated prop.

Chilies are not something that I feel are straight forwards. I find them challenging, in that they don’t always germinate. Some chillies have a different ‘cracking’ point in comparison to others. Then you need to have heat to make sure that they are loved. Whilst I say chillies, I’m including peppers in that. There a number of sweet peppers, in addition to the one bell pepper.

To think that it all started way back when, with these things.

I was rather disappointed with what happened last year. These will be taking up window sills in the classroom hopefully, and not be seeing the Wendy house. All being well, they will be joined by tomatoes in a few weeks. If the seeds were sown now, I do think they would keel over.

It would be lovely to get a nice crop of cayenne and bells. A handful were produced in the first year of hobbitry, but none since. Diddly bells have been produced but nothing big.

Here’s to this years chilli adventure,

Yours in anticipation,

Horticultural Hobbit