Chilli Chirps

@chillichirps

I grow things. Often chillies. And make things. Often sauces. London, UK

281 Siguiendo475 Seguidores1196 Publicaciones

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Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 14d

This has come true to type from the seeds I saved. I think it's CP115 Chocolate, so props to Christopher Phillips for getting it this stable. It's as hot as it looks, but last year's crop, alongside a bunch of Dorset Nagas, made for the best fermented sauce I've yet made. Looking forward to more 🌶️🌱

A very gnarly looking ripe chilli sits beneath an equally gnarly unripe one. The ripe colour is a sort of bronzed red, but will darken with time to a darker metallic brown.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 16d

First Naga Morich of the season. It's only a wee one, but it's got some teeth 🌶️🌱

A small, red naga morich pepper on a piece of weathered wood.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 16d

Same with mine by the house - they've dipped into shade now, and you can see how well they're doing by comparison. I pulled about 20 pods off the Hot Wax last week, and the Jalapeno on the far right is the one that got snapped off by the fox a few weeks back - all that growth is new.

Four chilli plants in a small brick trough next to my kitchen wall. From left to right:
Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry, a mass of variegated foliage with several big pods hidden among the leaves.
Purple Pumpkin, with smaller, dark leaves, and upwards of 30 pods with more already forming.
Hungarian Hot Wax, looking bare because I harvested 20 big peppers from it last week.
Early Jalapeno, half the size of the others because it was bitten off at the base by a fox. It's been quick to regrow though, and a few new flowers have appeared.

The Jala

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 16d

Good to hear ☺️ The outdoors in my garden are doing great, problem is the community garden grow-station I set up: a total sun trap, facing directly south, Death Valley hot. CG folk will water the greenhouse, but nobody remembers the outdoor ones, hence this set up. Still time to rally though! 🤞

16 (so far) chilli plants, mostly annuums and baccatums, at a little grow station I set up on an under-used patio in our Community Garden.

The benefit of grouping them here is that I've set up a solar automatic watering system, to keep things alive when we go away; it's ALWAYS a heat wave when we go away. The downside is that this spot is hotter than a pitta pocket. But hopefully, as the sun gets lower, things will start to do better.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 16d

Not great, Rob. This pot of 3 gets rotated, so each plant is shaded by the others, and being on the patio also benefits from other shade. Some of the annuums out in full sun are doing less well. Being in the ground helps, but only the ones that dodge the slugs. (pic descriptions in alt)

Planting context - 3 chilli plants in a single pot, unknown purple chinense, candy cane chocolate and purple pumpkin, showing how they shade one another, and get additional respite from a tree in the background and high garden fences.

By contrast, this stunted Poblano is in full sun for most of the day, and is struggling to put leaves on despite an automated watering system. There's an Aji Limon to the right which is considerably smaller still.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 16d

Well now! Mystery Chilli #3 looks like a superhot with a purple persuasion. An exciting discovery, and another reason I love the Red Dragon randoms. Had I known it was chinense I would've put it inside, but it's thriving anyway. I'll post pics of the plant later, but for now, any ideas? 🌶️🌱

A gnarly-but-beautiful-looking chilli, flushing purple from green in the most delicate palette. I assume it'll end up red, so I'm hoping to capture the transition.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 16d

Big tom. Over 1kg! I didn't grow this, my plot neighbour did. An unknown variety, a literal heirloom, seeds passed down from generation to generation. Hungarian, so like their chillies it ripens earlier than your standard beefsteak to make the most of a short season. Her record, IIRC, is 1.8kg 🌱

An enormous beefsteak tomato dwarfs my kitchen scales, and registers a weight of 1.016 kg. A vivid red, it nevertheless carries the scars of its excess, the point where the stem attaches being a grey crater of damage and repair. Barely visible, on the left, a deep cleft has dried over where the skin could not accommodate the fruit's explosive growth.

That said, I grated it into pulp, and the majority of it was good.

That's more bruschetta al pomodoro than the three of us that eat it here can manage (this was one tomato of four - must be 2.5 kg in total). I'll freeze some for sauce. The neighbour is away for 3 weeks, and we're under instruction not to let anything go to waste, so there's more on the way.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 17d

Here's the plant. Some of the 🌶️ are coming through larger now, but def not to type. It grew compact and fast, then exploded in flowers and stopped dead. Now it's starting to spread. I think KS grows in small pots, for early fruits and quick generations, so growth habit maybe less considered.

A small chilli plant, small at least for a mature chinense sp. It's supposed to be a KS Orange Flame, but it doesn't seem to be. Aspects of the plant look more like an annuum, and the fruits are undersized and bright red, with chinense heat and flavour.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 17d

This particular Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry is really something. How is it such a force of nature with so little chlorophyll. Pods are slow to ripen, but I'll take that. 🌶️🌱

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 17d

These KS Orange flame are not quite what I was expecting - guessing a bit of crossing has been going on. Can't complain, they were freebies anyway, but I'd got quite excited by how prolific the plant was looking. I had 2 plants, both looked very different - should have kept the smaller one 🤷 🌶️🌱

A handful, sort of, of chilli pods which were meant to be KS Orange Flame. They've turned out to be red, not orange, and are averaging around 6mm in length, so certainly not what was advertised.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· 29d

Shishito time! 🌶️🌱

A bunch of shishito chillies on the BBQ, along with a couple of long red peppers that I can't identify but I successfully stuffed with feta.

A plate of delicious, char grilled shishito peppers.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 7

Something very striking about the white flowers against the cream leaves here. Stunning foliage on this, and an unusual backdrop for a capsicum flower. Variety is Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry: I've heard it's not especially stable, so if the pods are any good I'll try to isolate some seeds. 🌶️🌱

A white flower of Capsicum annuum nestles quietly among its own green-flecked cream foliage.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 6

There goes the Buena Mulata 😢 I've got bad soil for 🌶️, but pots require space and watering, so I took the time to properly prepare some ground. Then this, and it's not alone - about 8 plants already ruined. Until someone solves the mollusc imbalance, gardening for me remains mostly heartbreak. 🌶️🌱

What remains of the stem of a buena mulata chilli plant; slugs have removed all the outer material in a ring about 1.5cm long, starving the plant of water, nutrients and structure (I had to prop it up for the photo). This one is done for, and there are a bunch of others following not far behind.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 6

One lone pod for me, and it's looking oddly pale - hope I haven't got my labels mixed up and ended up with 2 CP115s and no nagas 🤔

A single, pale green Naga Morich pod, if my labelling is to be trusted, nestled among the leaves of the plant.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 4

Here's a pic of the second pod, cut in half to show the insides. There were 3 pods on this tiny plant, so it's really struggled to ripen them. There's no heat in these first 3, but the flavour is very good - sweet, with a hint of citrus. 🌶️🌱

Mystery Chilli #1, cut in half to show the seeds. It is orangey-yellow, almost round, with thick flesh. The seeds are large, but also give a sense of scale showing that the pepper itself is quite small.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 3

Mystery chilli #2. What could it be? 12cm long, 2.5cm wide, generic pepper flavour but it does have a bit of heat. 🌶️🌱

Mystery Chilli #2, red, almost as long as the plant that bears it, in a large square pot, outdoors beside a fence.

The pod cut in half lengthwise. It's the first chilli on a small plant, so a lot of seeds are undeveloped.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 2

Yes, these look more akin to my experience. Here's mine tonight - the older leaves as you can see are a bit more green. 🌶️🌱

A Testarossa Orange chilli plant. The leaves at the top are almost black, with a flash of fresh lime green where the new ones are growing at the crown. Further down, the foliage is somewhere between green and black.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 2

Here's mine - the first one is big and not fruiting, the second growing pods when it should probably be growing itself. 🌶️🌱

Extremely variegated foliage on a Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry plant, in a small raised border against the house wall.

Immature Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry pods, with strong cream and green striping.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 2

Here's the Sweet Moruga. It's a long way behind your scorpion, but it's close to a foot tall and it's got a few flowers showing. 🌶️🌱

A single chilli plant of the species C. chinense, in a lean-to greenhouse against a red brick wall

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jul 2

I added a sprinkling of freshly chopped Fatalii chilli to a small, homegrown salad. Not only did it elevate the flavour in the most fantastical way, it also made my lunch unendurable 🌶️🌱

A yellow fatalii pepper hanging from a plant in the evening light

A finely-chopped salad of beetroot, spring onion, red pepper and coriander, with a sprinkling of even more finely-chopped fatalii chilli

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jun 28

The fox has killed my Early Jalapeño. The Purple Pumpkin suffered a narrow escape. My fault, as it turns out; it's my habit to swill the empty milk cartons and pour them into this bed. Thursday's milk soured in the heatwave, so the whole lot went in: immediately she's back to excavating 🌶️🌱

A good-sized Early Jalapeño plant, snapped off near the base and the roots dug up. No pickles for me this year :(

The base of a Purple Pumpkin plant, showing a 6 inch hole and the roots exposed.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jun 17

This year's Mystery Chilli #1 - any ideas? Bright yellowy-orange (looks slightly darker here in the evening light), 4cm long and almost spherical. Foliage is on the pale side.

A round, orange chilli pod against pale green leaves.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jun 15

Two Candy Cane Chocolate Cherries, and a budding fruit. Both plants are favourites for the foxes to dig up, getting half of their roots pulled out every night. Coincidence and misfortune, I'm sure, but it explains why they're not looking happier. 🌶️🌱

A Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry pepper, in a pot, with an unknown dark-leaved chilli below it.

Another Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry, this time in a raised planter against our kitchen wall. The leaves show strong variegation, but there are no fruits on this one as yet.

An early, partially developed fruit on a Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry. It is green at this stage, with fairly prominent white striping.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Jun 2

First earlies 🌶️🌱

A young Hungarian Hot Wax pepper, which would have been removed earlier to let the plant grow if I'd seen it in time. It went into a breakfast wrap, with red pepper, mushrooms, scrambled egg and cheese.

3 immature Buena Mulata peppers, bright purple with a purple and white flower showing. Unlike the Hot Wax, I probably wouldn't have culled these despite the plant being small - it's so productive anyway, it's a safe bet for enjoying a bit of early colour (and heat).

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· May 23

Always check your recipes. I accidentally put twice the amount of Dorset Naga in this one. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it means the OH won't be downing it, and the pool of friends I can share it with is reduced by half. It's damn good, mind 😆🌱🌶️

A bottle of my own Mango Naga, with an 'Extra Naga' strap-line to remind me that it's not for the faintest of hearts. It's picured on a wooden plinth against a brick wall.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· May 13

It's surprising how spicy a sauce becomes when you drop a git-load of mixed peppers in. I love the savoury taste of this though, and it comes from the simplest of ingredients. 🌱🌶️

A bottle of hot sauce, consisting of a large number of chilli peppers tempered by some butternut squash. The label features a badly-drawn Sasquatch, carrying a butternut in one hand and an over-sized chilli in the other.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· May 10

The cactus with a flower that's bigger than itself. I used to know my cacti, but I've no idea what this is. It's remarkable though, in that once or twice a year a bud explodes, almost overnight, into this stunning bloom. It lasts only a day, then it shrivels up. 🌱

A huge, white flower erupts from a tiny cactus. 30 or more pure white petals are arranges around pale yellow stamen. The flower is about 10 cm across, the cactus barely 6.

The same flower and cactus, shown from above, to show how the inflorescence is pushed out to a distance about 3 times the width of the plant.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· May 10

It's been quiet on the Hot Peppers feed lately - we're in the slack time between seedling and fruit, and conditions here have been testing, with cold nights, desiccating days, and a bumper bloom of aphids. Fortunately the predators are starting to catch up.

A ladybird larva works its way along the branch of an aphid-infested chilli.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Apr 28

This is exciting: not only tasty, but almost completely inedible 🫠 🌶️🌱

An extremely hot chilli mash containing CP115 Chocolate peppers, chocolate romanos, chocolate, shallots, garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt.

Chilli Chirps@chillichirps· Apr 23

A green longhorn moth landed on the chillies as I was sorting them out. I've never seen one of these, and I'm continually astounded by the way our community garden bucks the trend for ever diminishing nature. That long white line trailing south is less than half of one antenna 😮🌶️🌱