Chilli progress report

Following on from my post yesterday about harvesting my first chillis of the year, here is a more general update on how my chillis are performing.

Well, obviously the "Cayenne" and that unknown "Turkish" variety had done well to produce big fruits already - even if I didn't let them ripen.

The theory is that since I have taken an early crop of their fruit, those plants will react by producing a second set of flowers, resulting in an overall higher yield. Actually, I have two "Cayenne" plants and they both had more flowers and fruits on them, in addition to the ones I picked.

"Cayenne"

The unknown (possibly Turkish) plant is the tallest of this year's plants - rather gangly and sparsely foliated:

Most of the plants are now either flowering or setting fruit. This is "Aji Benito", a compact bushy specimen which looks as if it will produce a big crop.

"Aji Benito"

"Aji Benito"

And this is "Fidalgo Roxa".  It has very attractive dark stems and foliage.

"Fidalgo Roxa"

Look at that, four flowers/fruits from one node!

"Fidalgo Roxa"

My two "Aji Limon" plants demonstrate quite nicely the effects of pinching-out, which I described a couple of weeks ago. The unpinched one has a tall stem, which has now branched naturally at a height of about 12in / 30cm, and has some small secondary growth at the base:

"Aji Limon", unpinched

The other, pinched-out, one has no "top growth", but four big strong sideshoots emanating from near the base:

"Aji Limon", pinched

Significantly, it is also starting to produce flowers - before its "natural" sibling.

Flower bud on "Aji Limon"

The same is happening with my two "Cozumel Fat" (nickname!) plants, even though they are much smaller:

2 x "Cozumel Fat"- left one has been pinched-out

Strong new basal growth on the pinched-out "Cozumel Fat".

The Hungarian chilli whose seeds were kindly sent to me by Jeff English is looking a lot better now, after a slow and shaky start. It doesn't look as if it will ever be a big plant though.

"Hungarian, small, red"

My "Ring of Fire" plant is slow to flower again. I had been told that this was an early one, but based on this year and last year's experience, I can say that this is definitely not so!

"Ring of Fire"

This particular plant seems to be very attractive to Ladybird larvae. Today I counted 7 larvae / pupae on it.

The "Challock Chilli" looks superficially very similar to the "Ring of Fire":

"Challock Chilli"

It has several beautiful plain white flowers, but none have set fruit yet.

"Challock Chilli"

The very hot conditions we have had just recently have evidently suited "Panama 6" (another nickname, of course), which has had a growth spurt. This plant (possibly a Habanero of some sort) was grown from seed last year and over-Wintered. It has grown very slowly up till now, but it is beginning to look more promising.

"Panama 6"

One of my Jalapenos is doing fine, but its sibling is still curiously much less enthusiastic:

Both of these are "Jalapeno"

The "Redfields Orange" (nickname) remains absolutely tiny, but even it has some buds now. I wonder how big (small) the fruits will be?!

"Redfields Orange" (possibly a "Demon" type)

Well, that's the state of play for now. Judging by the BBC weather forecast, we are due for about 10 days of much cooler weather now, so my chillis will be less happy, but at least most of them have developed into reasonably strong plants by now, so they should be able to cope.