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Sally Nex

Tag Archives: tree chilli

Chilli fiesta

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by sallynex in greenhouse

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chillies, rocoto, tree chilli

greenhouse1

Ah. Yes. The tree chilli.

Also known as a rocoto, it’s one of the few varieties which you can overwinter fairly reliably in a frost-free greenhouse in the UK. This monster has just finished its third year: it is my pride and joy (I think I have mentioned it here and in magazines and basically anywhere I can get away with several times as I am so inordinately pleased with it).

Apart from a close encounter with a bevy of marauding aphids earlier this year it’s been quite easy to look after (once I got the message that it needs serious support: that lot is braced with two-by-one posts at each corner). It is absolutely enormous. And it’s laden down to the ground with dozens of lovely fat red chillies.

chillies1

Trouble is, we still have bags of chillies in the freezer from last year’s bumper harvest. I have palmed off as many as I can on friends, family and passing dog-walkers: but I now need to pick the rest. The overwintering routine for my pet chilli monster is to cut back the top growth by about a third, then bubblewrap the greenhouse (somehow working it behind that forest of branches) and switch on the heater to just above freezing.

Cutting off the top third of this lot is going to involve removing most of the chillies. So – anyone want some?

I have come up with a scheme so we’ll see if it works. What I suggest is that if you send me a fiver by Paypal (including postage & packaging), I’ll send anything up to 10 fresh chillies to you by post (if you don’t want all 10, please specify how many you would like).

chillies2

You can use them in your cooking, of course: they’re pretty hot at between 50,000 and 250,000 scoville heat units (around the habanero scale of pokiness), so you only need about a quarter of a chilli to turn the heat up quite considerably. You can’t dry them, as they’re too fleshy, but you can freeze them: I do mine individually in muffin trays, then decant them into a plastic bag till I need them.

Or of course you can extract the (jet-black) seeds and dry them for sowing next year, so you too can have one of these fabulous plants staging an invasion of the end of your greenhouse.

So – what do you think? First come, first served: post here with your name to bag your chillies (UK residents only I’m afraid), then once I’ve confirmed that you have the chillies send your payment via Paypal to sallywhite (at) hotmail (dot) com. Once I’ve run out of chillies, I’ll let you know in the comments below!

Life in the greenhouse: July

21 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by sallynex in greenhouse

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Tags

chillies, life in the greenhouse, plant supports, rocoto chilli, tree chilli

greenhouse1

Help! We’ve had a bit of a disaster.

My tree chilli is my pride and joy. It’s now three years old and has settled in nicely, colonising the back left-hand corner of my no.1 greenhouse with such enthusiasm that nothing else gets a look-in.

But oh dear. I popped by this morning and look what’s happened to him. There are two sweet peppers under there somewhere, too. Somewhat squashed by now, no doubt.

greenhouse3

Tomatoes in greenhouse no.2 are more straightforwardly supported with canes – though even then they’re escaping off the tops. I am about to bolt a horizontal cane across the glass to take them all up to the roof.

I never had much luck with chillies before I found this one: they struggle to get enough light and heat in a single growing year here in the rainy old west, and since they die as soon as it gets cold the odds are stacked against you right from the start. Keeping them in the greenhouse seemed to help, but still the results were so-so.

Then I stumbled upon rocoto chillies, Capsicum pubescens – one of the few types which are more tolerant of cooler temperatures. Crucially that means that they have half a chance of surviving the winter, especially tucked inside a cool greenhouse: they can even – just – manage a couple of degrees of frost as long as they’re not damp at the roots. And two-year-old-plus plants are not only more productive, they’re also more resilient so can cope with more cold… and you have a virtuous circle.

greenhouse2

Jolly handy, these things – though be careful as if you tie too much weight to them the whole greenhouse buckles in a rather alarming sort of fashion.

My chilli is now so perennial it has a trunk. The fruits are fantastic, prolific and ripening to fiery red with the jet-black seeds typical of rocoto types: they’re blisteringly hot, about the same heat as a habanero, so you only need a quarter of a chilli to fire up a whole dish. They’re too fleshy to dry so I freeze them whole: I had so many last year I was supplying all my family and friends too.

I had been optimistically propping him up with a few canes and some string but they were as matchsticks when it came to holding back this behemoth. His relentless rise to the roof ridge – he hit it last year and I fear may push it off its moorings this year – has made him so top-heavy he’s collapsed sideways in an ungainly heap. And he’s not even laden with fruit yet: who knows how heavy he’ll get by then.

greenhouse4

Early results are looking promising…

I do have some rather handy bolts in the greenhouse frame which I shall have to press into service for this one, I think: I’m thinking three sturdy tree stakes driven into the ground, plus horizontal slats to make a kind of cage around that corner.

As always I wish I’d done it at the start of the season: staking late is never a good thing as you invariably end up trussing things up and that’s no good for air circulation or health in general. But I shall have to live with it for now as the status quo isn’t an option. I may need a bigger greenhouse…

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