Really excited today. First of all I planted some of the seedlings that were in the glass jars into small pots (3cm this time), and moved almost all of the seedlings in the small greenhouse into the now empty jars (missing one Splendor).
Second of all, I passed by the office (had lecture) to see the seedlings there, and WOW! One weekend of mild sunshine (not even that much. It was cloudy all weekend) and some Chilli Focus made them shoot up quite a bit.
I GOT MY OTHER SEEDS! Hazzah! I ordered them from Peppermania (home of the Aji Queen. I wonder if that makes me her subject?). I ordered some Datil Chillies, Brazilian Starfish, Habanero Pastel Market, Paper Lanterns, Cumari au Passarinho. The Aji Queen threw in some free seeds (Aji Limo Rojo), and her business card had another little bag with a hodge-podge of chilli seeds! YAY! There are some Capsicum pubescens seeds (easy one, pubescens seeds are black), and probably another two types. I'll enjoy growing them to see what they end up being.
Well, I had promised I'd post some of the photos of the chillies I'm growing, so here they arrrrrr! (the spicy pirate in me).
The top photo is of the ones growing at work. From top to bottom: Cherry Chilli, Chocolate Sweet Pepper X2, and Cayenne Ring of Fire. They are doing absolutely wonderful. They have a nice source of heat next to them in the form of the radiators, a nice glass window on the other side, and plenty of sunlight (south-ish facing window). You can Tell they love it!
The second photo is of the ones at home. They did germinate a few days later than the top ones, so they are a little smaller, but still, the look really nice. From left to right: Rocoto Rojo (worry not. The little pencil stick is just to make sure it grows in the right direction. It's doing wonderful), Esplendor (the tiny one, I think), Stromboli, Etna, and Belpicen. A bit less sunshine than at work, but I might move some of them over to the office as spring progresses.
You can just make out the little glass jars next to the pots. I've got the Habaneros and Nagas in them.
Today I finished off some Lemon Curd, and guess what I did with the jar?
Yep.
Got one of the Fataliis into it.
Watching Saturday Kitchen now. The 'Wine Experts' are such weirdos... gotta love 'em, though.
But they are decidedly weird...
Gotta go finish some Polish Red Cabbage and Apple sauerkraut for lunch.
I need the jar...
I was sad I've had to bin some of the chilli seedlings because they've rotted.I feel like a vegetable general vowing that 'no capsicum gets left behind, Joe' only to watch them get mowed down by my innexperience.
I guess it's playing the averages, really.
I decided that I would only plant two seeds per variety (Almapaprika would have been very crossed had I decided to go for all the seeds...we just don't have the space in the flat!), so I bought two little mini greenhouses, the ones that can hold up to 22 Jiffy pellets.
Jiffy pellets are cool! They look like little chocolate coins or oreos (just don't eat them, please) made of peat or coir, that when you dunk in warm water POOF! they swell to five times their size, and allow you to use to sow seeds.
They're like those instant grow dinosaurs you see at the continental market stands, or that 'grow your own girlfriend' a friend of mine once gave me as a prank (my brother, Peperoncino thought it was for real. Just add water...).
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. 22 per mini greenhouse. Two greenhouses. Two seeds per variety (sort of). In the first greenhouse I planted (January 14, 2009):
2 Ring of Fire
2 Cherry Chilli
2 Esplendor
2 Belpicen
2 Chocolate Sweet Pepper
2 Chi-Chien
2 Numex Suave Orange
2 Caribbean Red Habanero
6 of the Supermarket bought chillies from 2006
On the second one a week later:
2 Naga Morich
2 Red Savina
2 Chocolate Habanero
2 Fatalii
2 Orange Habanero
2 Birds Eye (piri-piri)
2 Rocoto Red (Rojo)
2 Scotch Bonet
2 Chiltepin (Tepin)2 Jamaican Hot (Habanero)
2 more Esplendor
All done, right?
Not really. As some of the chillies began to germinate (or not), I moved them out of the greenhouse and into larger covered pots or into my ultimate grenhouse:
Glass Jars
With the space made, I added:
2 Stromboli
2 Etna
4 Black Cuban
4 White Habaneros
Sadly, the space made was done by the loss of the follwing:
2 Numex Suave Orange (just wilted. I guess it was too humid inside the greenhouse)
6 Supermarket Chillies from 2006 (guess it was old seeds)
1 Chi-Chien
1 Esplendor
And today it looks like I'm probably losing:
1 Jamaican Hot
1 Chocolate Habanero
That's the two greenhouses. I'm placing them next to and on top of the radiator to get some good heating to germinate the seeds (Almapaprika would prefer that heat go to more important things, like heating the room). The photo was from the third week in January. That same corner now has 10 little extra pots!
Will tell y'all later about how many have germinated and are so far going strong.
