These chili peppers are very easy to grow and they can grow even on a windowsill. Chili peppers needs a very sunny location to grow in. Chili peppers comes in a variety of colors such as yellow, green, red, orange, and purple, and there is a lot of different array of 'heats' that is from mild flavors to atomic flavors. Many of these chili peppers can be dry, and this means that one plant can provide you with a whole year's supply of chilies.
1. Sowing Under Cover
Chili peppers needs to be sown under cover in early spring, because they need a long growing season. Which one you are going to use whether it is small pots or trays, you will need to fill each with seed compost, then water real good, and then let each one to drain real well.
Next, you will need to sow all of your seeds now, water them, and then place the container that you used in a heated propagator set at 68 degrees to 75 degrees F. Seedlings will show in one to two weeks, continue to let them grow under cover in a location that is kept warm.
2. Growing On
Continue on letting your seedling to grow under cover in a bright location, but do not let the temperature to get any cooler than 64 degrees F even at night. As soon as the roots of the plant fills the cell, you will need to planted them into four inches pots. After your seedlings reach four inches tall, you will need to start feeding them using a high-potash liquid fertilizer, such as tomato feed.
In order to have plenty of fruiting stems, you will need to pinch off the plants when they get to be eight inches tall.
3. Planting Out
If you have decided to grow your chili peppers plants outside, you will need to begin hardening them off in early summer. When you get your plants ready, you can planted them into growing bags, containers, or planted them out into a free-draining soil in a sunny spot. Now, if you are growing your plants under cover, your chili pepper plants in needs to be at least ten inch wide.
4.Routine Care
Plants will need to be water regularly, during the growing season, especially these that you are growing under cover or in container. All of the chili pepper plants need to be fed often with a liquid tomato fertilizer. If you are growing your plants under cover, or your weather is cool or windy, you will need to hand pollinate the flowers by using a cotton swab to make fruit to set.
5. Harvesting
The chili peppers will mature over several weeks and you can pick them while they are green or fully colored. . At the end of their season, you can either covered them with cloches or you can pulled them from the soil and hang them in a warm dry place where the remaining fruits will ripen.
Different Varieties of Chili Peppers
If you like chili peppers or you are interested in trying to raise some in the next season, here is a list of different varieties of chili peppers that I hope will help you out on your decision.
1. Apache- this is a compact one. that would be great for patio containers and window boxes., because they only grows up to eighteen inches. The pepper is red and is 1 1/2 inches long. The heat of the 'Apache' is a medium heat.
2. 'Alma Paprika'- it has a mild-taste to it and it is suitable to grow these in cooler weather. The fruit has a round shape to it and it grows to two inches long and you can sliced them up and put them in your salad. You need to used these fruits when they are fresh only.
3. Hungarian Hot Wax- this pepper is a good choice for cooler areas. They produced large-pointed, mild-tasting fruits. They go from pale green to red as they ripen and you can harvested them once large enough.
4. ' Prairie Fire' this pepper will give you a good steady crop of small, brightly colored fruits through out the summer. The heat of this pepper is very hot. They also can be grown in containers if you would like to and they are a good variety of chili pepper to dry.
5. 'Aji Amarillo' this pepper has a hot-taste to it and it needs to grow in a warm location to grow good and it will grow better if it is under cover. The fruit can be picked green or red.
6. 'Pardon'- the peppers will grow two inches long and you will have several weeks of these fruits where you can picked either when it is mild and green or you can leave them longer and they will be ripen fully and real hot. It is good for drying.
7. Cayenne- it is a type of chili, and they have long curling fruit which is up to twelve inches long. It is good for drying.
8.'Cherry Bomb'- this one is a very hot pepper and it is a compact plants that will grow good in pots.
9. 'Demon Red'- this one is a compact variety and it is thin-skinned. It is very hot. You can grow this chili pepper in containers and they grow well in cooler weather.
When I was growing up, my parents always save a spot in our garden for chili pepper plants. By writing about this brings good memories about all of the gardening I did with my parents years ago.
