It was a hot summer here in the south of England, and our first with the new polytunnel

We couldn’t wait to see how our chilli peppers would grow in comparison to previous years being grown in the ground in the old greenhouse.

This year we grew chillies in there, as well as in pots, and in our new ‘hugelkultur’ raised bed inside the polytunnel, which gave us a really good selection! We posted a review of our chilli and Sweet pepper grows last year, but this year was a whole new level of heat!

This years Chilli line up

We’ve had Ripe chillies before but we knew they could perform better if given the right environment! The polytunnel lived up to our hopes and dreams in this aspect and in comparison to the vegetable garden, the plants were weeks in development making them quicker to ripen, and gave us amazing yields!

Varieties we grew

A familiar favourite is the Jalapeno. Most used in our kitchen and made into amazing pickles that keep this flavour  going long into Winter, we will always grow this as its Liams Favourite of All!

Hottest chilli weve grown was the Carolina Reaper, by far too hot to eat really but we all know an idiot! We were however able to use it sparingly in sauces and as an infused ingredient. Did you realise chilli spirits are a thing? Liam put a single Reaper a bottle of homebtew vodka in his last batch of home brewing and it turned pure white which looked and tasted pure evil! Really novelty and super ornamental, also able to grow well in a container but we won’t be growing this every year in our precious growing space.

The best flavoured chilli was the Chocolate Habenero which has a super smoky, deep flavour with a proper kick. We really love this added to tomato based stew and as an ingredient in homemade BBQ style hot sauce alongside our homemade apple cider vinegar and local honey we bought from a fete we were selling plants at! We will definitely be growing this again!

Most prolific was the Peruvian Lemon Drop which was one of the first to ripen and the last standing in the garden! It really does taste very lemony and is what I call a lip stinger as the heat is felt immediately! We made these into Chilli Ristras as the fruits dry really well. A very ornamental and easy to dry chilli that we would definitely grow again but probably won’t need to with the amount of fruits harvested!

The mildest and most unique looking chilli was the variegated Fish chilli  which is apparently used to accompany fish dishes but it was a slow grower. I have really loved growing the Mexican Rocoto Red chilli which is really interesting with its purple flowers, fuzzy foliage  and bizarre looking black seeds, the bright red fleshy fruit is sweet, crunchy and very spicy! We had so many fruits that we were able to make litres of Rocoto Sweet Chilli Sauce which was the best sweet chilli we’d ever had and went down really will with the family!

Sweet peppers

Which varieties we grew

The most prolific plant had to be the Napia Red Sweet Pepper, which was also my favourite! Really juicy flavour and a well organised looking plant that held itself well. They were the first ripe peppers we had starting in Early August and they kept on going until Early November!

We found the Semorah pepper to be prolific but fruits were quite skinny and not as fleshy as the others. Many of the fruits in the greenhouse were eaten by pests and birds, but those in the Polytunnel were much more successful! They were however, the first to die off in Autumn.

Kaibi Round bell pepper ripens to a wonderful bright red and is a strong growing plant. The fruits taste amazing and have thick, fleshy walls, but took longer than others to ripen. In the polytunnel, the plants grew huge and produced a decent crop of fully ripened peppers, but none much bigger than a cricket ball. In the vegetable garden, the plants as a whole, grew smaller, and the fruits grew HUGE, but did not fully ripen! Fortunately, this is still a very tasty specimen to eat even unripe so we didn’t miss out too much! I didn’t keep any seeds from my harvest as I don’t think they were at their full potential, but i’ll be ordering some more seeds for next year!

Another favourite with us all was the Sweet Chocolate bell pepper which is a very nice variety and grew really well here, producing lots of fruit all summer long until early November. We found it to be wonderful in taste and interesting to look at with its red fleshy inside covered in a purple skin. It looks like sweet chocolate! We had ripe peppers in the vegetable garden too which is always a bonus. We will definitely grow this pepper again!

Growing in the old greenhouse

Last year we didn’t manage to get any fully ripe sweet peppers from the vegetable garden, but this year we had so many from the new raised beds in the polytunnel!

Growing Chillies in Containers

We grew many plants in 10litre pots to see how differently they performed in comparison to those in our new raised beds.

We fertilised these regularly with homemade comfrey tea and we thought they were quite impressive.

The more you pick, the more they will grow!

It’s a great way to grow especially for those with limited ground space. The soil dries out much quicker than those growing in the ground. Although they do say, the more you stress the plant, the hotter the pepper!

Growing in our raised ‘Hugelkultur’ Bed

Translating as ‘Hill Grown’, we have piled up logs at the base of our raised beds so that they can provide nutrients to the soil as it breaks down over the years.

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If you’ve read our blog ‘Spring Inside the Polytunnel‘, you’ll see how we created our raised beds by piling up logs at the base of so that they provide nutrients to plants as they break down over the years. It translates as ‘hill grown’ and this is a method that has proven to be very effective all over the world, especially in areas of very poor soil.

Next Year

We are taking our chilli growing experience to the next level by growing more than ever before! As well as growing plants for our Spring Plant sale, our passion for chillies is ever expanding and the demand for hot sauce is higher than ever. With our second polytunnel we will be growing plants dedicated for preserving! Chillies, Sweet Peppers and Tomatoes are the base of our recipes and will enter Polytunnel 2 for its first growing project. Our experiment will test which varieties perform best in this new enrivornment which has been known to exceed 55C in the heat of summer!

As well as growing for the kitchen, we grow will raise hundreds of plants from seed to sell to our neighbours at the Spring plant sale. We encourage everyone to grow chillies since there are so many types, you only need a small sunny space!

We plan to double up our raised beds inside the polytunnel and create another trellis so we can fit more sub-tropical climbers in besides our Chillies and Sweet Peppers!

The worm farm has been up and running for over a year now and there are a lot of of wonderful worm castings for us to use in next years soil!

Plans for a new heated seed bed are undergo for Spring 2020!

What we learnt

When it comes to growing these plants from seed, it’s good to start them as early as possible, indoors by a window, with bottom heat for quickest results! A light can also be used if you dont have window space! High humidy is helpful until the seedlings pop through.

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Some chillies take longer than others to ripen so make sure those plants such as Carolina Reapers have the earliest start and the sunniest position in the garden if you want ripe fruit!