Seedlings!

So over the past few days there has been some activity. 

A couple of the Little Elf popped their heads up about 3 days ago (and possibly a Butch T. I can't remember where the cut-off between the two strains was :P )

Then yesterday my heated propagator started showing signs of life. So far the Peter Pepper's (or Chilli Willy) and Trinidad Scorpions are coming through. The only thing not showing yet in this one is the Moruga Scorpions. I was expecting these to take a bit longer though.

The Super Hots!

My Jalapeno's and Cayenne's have had to be brought indoors along with the ones above as the temperature has taken a turn for the worse and the greenhouse is just too cold at the moment. They'll all head back in once they have sprouted though.

Not Enough Heat

So the problem with these super hot chillies is that Ireland really doesn't have the weather for them. Some of the seeds I have require around 22-30 degrees celsius to germinate. We'd be lucky to see above 10 here at the moment.

Up to this point i've been dealing with this by placing some of my seed trays in the airing cupboard. However, I have already used up the spare room in there with the current 3 seed trays so I needed an alternative. So I ordered this:

Heated Propagator

A heated propagator. This thing is great. It's got an 8w heat cable built into its base that keeps a constant temperature of around 20 degrees, a capillary mat so I don't have to water as often, 2 seed trays and, best of all, its the exact size of my current seed trays so they can just drop straight in.

I need to pick up some more seeding compost before I plant my scorpion strains so in the mean time, I've dropped in a tray of Cayenne's.

This was actually taken at 10pm. My 6500k grow-lights are fantastic!

I've got a soil thermometer on its way, so if this proves to keep a good constant temperature all day long, I will think about picking up a second/third at some point.

Deliveries!

Yesterday my first shipment of the super hot's turned up and I made a start on planting some of them as well as a couple of packets I had picked up from the local garden centre.

So planted so far are:


40 x Cayenne
14 x Little Elf
12 x Butch T

40 x Tomatoes
40 x Bell Peppers

The Little Elf and Butch T are being started in the airing cupboard as it's still a little cold out in the greenhouse at the moment. Hopefully by the time they sprout the weather will have warmed up some more.
They will be joined in the airing cupboard by the Trinidad and Moruga Scorpion strains tonight as they turned up at the same time.

I also managed to find this little guy who had survived being outside through the ice and snow:

Survivor!

It's the only Strawberry plant that didn't get thrown away when I moved house. I honestly had forgotten about it and it had been left outside through the entirety of the winter. It's in the greenhouse now so we will see what comes of it.

This afternoon this arrived in the post:

Delicious!

My main batch of seeds. These will get planted tonight/tomorrow. Looking forward to these ones. Scotchbonnet and Habanero's are two of my all time favourite chillies.

2013 - The Year of The Chilli

Well a new year, a new project.

This year's focus is purely on chillies. These are always my favourite of the things I grow, so I thought I'd purely concentrate on those.

This is what seeds I have ordered so far:

100 x Jalapeno Purple
100 x Chiltepin
80 x Scotch Bonnet Red
40 x Habanero White
40 x Cayenne
10 x Little Elf
10 x Butch T
10 x Trinidad Scorpion
10 x Moruga Scorpion

So 400 chilli seeds in total. I'll also be growing a handful of other plants too. Mainly tomatoes and sweet peppers.

Now obviously I'll not be having that many plants growing at once. I just don't have the space (as you can see below). Each seed tray section will have two seeds in each, one of which is only for redundancy measures. So at max I will have 200 plants.
Even then some of those will be given away/sold to friends and at car-boot sales. I'm not certain the exact number I'll keep as this is the first time growing at the new house.

Speaking of which, this is what I will be growing in:

It's actually a single-glazed lean-to conservatory that has, up to this point, just been used as a storage room. I have commandeered half of it (other half is for storage still) which gives me around 10' x 10' of workable space. It's south facing too which is perfect.

I spent a few hours last weekend sorting it a bit and putting up some bubble-wrap insulation as well as making use of whatever I can find as shelving. So this is what it looks like at the moment.

I need to finish that last few panes with the bubble-wrap as well as moving the frames from the old mini-greenhouses in as more shelving.

The lamp you can see is fitted with a 5000k daylight bulb to give a couple of trays a head start. The black thing in the bottom right is filled with water and will be used for heat storage during the day. I also have a 80 litre compost bin which will stand in the centre of the room to provide another minor heat source.

Well that's everything so far. I'll update this again once I may some progress or when my seeds turn up.

My Past Attempts

I was brought up in the UK out in the country where we always had large vegetable plots, greenhouses, free range chicken and ducks and as much space as we really needed.

However, in 2009 I moved to Ireland through work and have been living in rented accommodation since then. This has put a premium on space and due to the lack of it I've only managed to grow my fruit and vegetables on a small scale with mixed success. Mostly it has just been the odd outdoor pot or window-sill propagator due to the aforementioned lack of space.

However, last year I moved to a property which gave me enough space to get myself a couple of mini-greenhouses - the 4 tier plastic variety like this:

I had all 8 shelves crammed with seed trays and things were coming along nicely. They were close to the point of being re-potted when I went to Barcelona for a few days.
When I came back I was greeted with the site of both greenhouses on their sides and a large pile of compost and broken pots. - Turns out there had been some insanely high winds while I had been gone.

Undeterred I decided to start again. I moved the greenhouses to a more sheltered area and started replanting. I was growing a random mix at this point consisting of whatever seeds I had left over. It consisted of a variety of chillies, tomatoes, radishes, bell peppers, herbs, and salad leaf.
This time things didn't fall over so within a few weeks I had this:

Mostly just chillies in here at the moment

Tomatoes ready to be re-potted

Unfortunately, due to a very poor summer (not much sun and very wet) things didn't go great for the produce. The majority of the tomatoes never ripened and the chilli's stayed green (apart from one plant which I ended up moving in-doors)

The tomatoes got a little bigger than this but never came to much

Some of the chillies grew massive, but never changed colour

In the end everything was picked green and turned into sweet green chilli jam and green tomato chutney

Tomatoes and onions ready for reducing

Green Tomato Chutney

So that was last year. This year i'm hoping for a lot more success and on a bigger scale. More to come soon...