My Chile pepper plans didn’t quite work out as well as I’d hoped. My crop wasn’t very successful and people who adopted some of my plants had similar mixed results. The main factor was simply the weather. Obviously Chilli plants are not native to the UK, but they should have fared OK, except that we really didn’t have much sun this summer. That was particularly annoying in a general sense, especially considering the MET office repeatedly predicted a very hot summer.

I ended up with about 2/3 good plants from each variety. I didn’t get any Tepin or Tabasco fruits, and the Serrano’s did very poorly too (only 3). The rest (Anaheim, Guajillo, Big Jim and Jalapeno) bore 5-10 fruits each. A handful are just finishing ripening off.

What I’ve generally leant is:

• I have a good success rate at growing seedlings
• Chilli plants defiantly flourish in very sunny warm weather
• They don’t like being overwatered
• Re-pot to larger pots as soon as possible
• Don’t be afraid to leave them outside
• Some organic pesticides damage the Chilli plants
• I need a greenhouse (yet I don’t have room) and a south facing garden (mine is ENE)… Or in other words I need to move house

I’ve also had a LOT of pest problems and I’ve learnt:

• Slugs can strip the plants in no time at all, and the copper tape doesn’t stop the larger ones
• Greenfly are easy to control using organic pesticides, but it doesn’t eradicate them
• None of the organic pesticides I tried killed spider mites, which themselves cause a lot of damage if not killed
• Fungus Gnats are as annoying as hell and a pain to control, even though they cause little damage

The moving house bit isn’t completely a joke. I’ve only been in this one for a year, and very much like Welwyn Garden City, but neither I nor Emma re really in love with this house, and we now have a much better idea of what we want – plus we’ve been watching It’s Not Easy being Green and have a lot of ideas we want to pursue, but can’t at this property.

So, I’m going to try again next year. I’ve got all of the eqipment, so it won’t cost much next tiem around. This time I will pick just 3 varieties, not 7. Now I just need to decide on which 3 to grow…