Clearing up unpollinated flowers is always a daily routine at this stage in the season, but it's no bothersome task and only takes about five minutes to do. Each day I give the plants a light shake to help distribute the pollen, and any flowers that have failed to pollinate also drop off and are then sucked up the vacuum cleaner. It's a good little system we've got going on here — order out of chaos and chaos out of order.
The Habanero porch plants are doing great as you can probably see in this next photo. There's not much in the way of new growth just yet but they're certainly churning out the pods. It's getting like a mini jungle in there now and David Attenborough could pop up at any moment!
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| Chilli Plants in the Porch - 14th August 2018 |
Re-potting the
Aji Charapita plants into 7-litre pots was probably a mistake because they've grown too large for their current spot. I suspected this might happen, but it's still good to experiment. If I grow this variety again in the same spot next year then it will be in pots no larger than 5-litres.
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| Aji Charapita - 14th August 2018 |
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| Aji Charapita - 14th August 2018 |
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| Aji Charapita - 14th August 2018 |
The
Chocolate Habanero plants are quite late this year and have only recently started setting fruit properly. One of them produced about five large chillies a few weeks ago but I picked those off while they were still at the green stage.
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| Chocolate Habanero - 14th August 2018 |
You can tell when the
Dorset Naga chillies are about to start ripening because they turn a darker shade of green, just like some other varieties do. I picked four small green ones last week to spice up a beef curry. Picking off immature pods will also encourage the plant to produce more flowers, and thus more fruit.
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| Dorset Naga - 14th August 2018 |
I do like the colour changes that the
Inca Berry chillies go through during the ripening process. I often look at the various stages and try to get a good photo, but due to my somewhat mediocre photography skills I still don't think I've captured the money shot just yet. One thing I've noticed with this variety is that the chillies fall away from the plant very easily when fully ripe.
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| Inca Berry - 14th August 2018 |
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| Inca Berry - 14th August 2018 |
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| Inca Berry - 14th August 2018 |
Inca Red Drop has produced more chillies and seems to be enjoying itself out in the vegetable patch. It shouldn't be too long now before some of them start ripening. I'm hoping that most will ripen before the weather turns, otherwise I'll have no choice but to pick them at the green stage and let them ripen on a sunny windowsill or in a brown paper bag with a ripe banana for company.
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| Inca Red Drop - 13th August 2018 |
All three
Malawi Bird's Eye plants have been quite prolific. Each one has a slightly different growth habit and has produced slightly different chillies in both size and shape, although only one plant is shown in the photo below.
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| Malawi Bird's Eye - 14th August 2018 |
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| Malawi Bird's Eye - 8th August 2018 |
Mini Rocoto Brown had a growth surge recently and was in need of a little trim to prevent it from growing leggy. It has produced a lot of new flowers and set more fruit. I'm looking forward to giving this one a try, and after a quick inspection earlier it appears that one of the peppers may be starting to ripen up.
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| Mini Rocoto Brown - 14th August 2018 |
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| Mini Rocoto Brown Flowers - 14th August 2018 |
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| Mini Rocoto Brown - 14th August 2018 |
Some of the chillies on this year's
Red Mayan Habanero plants are the largest I've ever had, which is no doubt due in part to the much larger pot size. Some have now turned a darker shade of green, meaning that they'll soon start ripening. They start light green like the ones shown below and then turn a darker shade of green about two weeks before the ripening process begins.
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| Red Mayan Habanero - 14th August 2018 |
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| Red Mayan Habanero - 14th August 2018 |
I've already picked and
frozen three batches of ripe pods from the
Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero plants, and there are still lots more yet to ripen. I've marked out five large pods on the plant shown below and these will be kept for
seed saving. As mentioned in a previous post, the smaller of the two plants has been the most prolific, and furthermore it has produced larger chillies.
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Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero - 14th August 2018
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| Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero - 14th August 2018 |
Here's a photo from yesterday showing a small harvest of Inca Berry, Malawi Bird's Eye and Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero chillies.
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| Chilli Harvest - 14th August 2018 |
Sadly I think we've seen the end of our dear old heatwave here in the UK. This pleases some people greatly, but not me. It could be another year before I hear people complaining about how hot it is, and yet oddly enough some of these people would happily jump on a plane and jet off to places like Tenerife or Egypt for a couple of weeks.
.jpg "Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero - 14th August 2018")
.jpg "Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero - 14th August 2018")
.JPG "Yellow Jelly Bean Habanero - 1st August 2018")
