Growing Guides How to grow chillies

Date Published:

15/10/2007

Caring

The potted plants should be placed in a sunny, sheltered position, preferably growing them in a greenhouse until all danger of frost is passed - usually by around early June.

Check the compost daily and ensure that it never dries out.

Once the plants begin to flower, you can start to feed them. Use a brand of fertiliser recommended for tomatoes, which will be rich in the potassium that they thrive on (garden centres and nurseries will have plenty to offer).

Plants placed outdoors in summer will develop fruit better as they will (hopefully) be visited by pollinating insects such as bees. If plants start to flower early, you can move them outside for the warmest part of the day (to provide insects with the opportunity to visit them) and will likely get an earlier crop because of it.

Remember to bring them inside again once the temperature dips, doing so permanently once the autumn weather arrives. The pollinated flowers will continue to provide fruit for a couple of months after that.

Harvesting

Chillies can be picked and eaten even when they're quite young, but the best flavour usually comes from more mature fruit.

Ideally you should pick the fruit as you need it, choosing those which are green, swollen and glossy and snipping them off with scissors.

If the fruit is picked while it's still young, more flowers will grow and further fruit should follow. Leaving it on the plant will mean a poorer crop.