Mastodawn

About half my chillies have germinated already - some time in the last 36 hours anyway. Chamomile soaked from 25th Jan, planted in pairs in mini pots on 28th Jan and popped into the #HotFridge, germinated circa 3rd/4th Feb.

If there is a race to be won here I guess the prize goes to the Chilli Chump "Kimchi Pepper" seeds — all 4 seeds strongly germinated!

Currently our no-shows are Chilli Chump Naga Morich, and also both Rocoto varieties (Marlene and Costa Rica, also both Chilli Chump, from last year.)

On the superhot germination front we have have a single Naga Morich from Fatalii and a single 7 Pot Brainstrain Yellow from Chilli Chump. That's pretty speedy for superhots really.

#chillies #growyourown #gyo #chilipeppers #peppers

I plant 2 seeds per pot for redunancy and remove the pots to go onto the "grow light shelf" as soon as one seedling has popped up. If two germinate in a pot I plan to either repot the second one or cull it by the end of Feb. That's a per-variety decision to be made on whether I want to grow more plants/redundancy or just save myself the potting-on hassle. Though I am thinking I may offer spares to my colleagues, a few of them are also growers and chillies do also make fun indoor plants...

Time to get the next set into some chamomile I guess. We have a few more chillies to go, and then I also start out my eggplants and capsicums at this time using the same method — first half Feb.

Tomatoes get the same treatment but I probably won't start them until the first week of March... they grow so damn fast, there just isn't that much of a rush.

There's other sowing going on as well, but done more simply, and not necesarilly needing the #HotFridge... I'm also about to do various alliums and a few other bits. It all gets pretty busy from this point.

Four more #chilli germinations overnight!

I picked through the chilli seeds at bedtime last night and decided to go all-in on another 14 varieties... absolutely not sticking to my guns on limiting them lol... so if all germinate that'll be 28 this year. But the plan for some of them is to be medium-size-pot only and on benches and maybe rotated through desk space at work. We shall see if I can ever manage to be anywhere near that organised though. Unlikely.

Two more germinations today, a 7 Pot Brainstrain Yellow and a Naga Morich, superhots from Chilli Chump.

And got the next set of chilli seeds into chamomile for planting on the weekend. This is a fairly eclectic set of 14 extra varieties about half of which I didn't really intend to grow this year. The most random is that Numex Twilight, there was one seed in the packet, which is marked as sow-by 2020... 😅 not fussed if that doesn't work out.

The key plants here are the anchos, the biquhinos, and jalapeños, and the padrons... everything else is filler.

Yesterday we had five more chilli germinations…

One being the second CC Naga Morich. So now I have 6x Naga seedlings lol (in both the Fatalii pots both have germinated), plan is to just grow 1x of the Chilli Chump one and 1x of the Fatalii one to see if there is any difference, purely out of curiosity. What I might do is do is put the strongest into the ground in the greenhouse and then also do one of each in pots.

Also we have germinations in all four Rocoto pots… these were uniformly the slowest seeds to germinate — but then 1x of each popped up all at once on the 7th Feb. Also really only want 1x of each of these, the Rocotos are big plants, this year I am planning to put these into the polytunnel.

Only 2x zero-germination pots, a Chupetinho White and an Aji Habanero. But I have 1x of the CW and 2x of the AH and these are plants I only really need 1x of each anyway. (More may well still germinate of course!)

Next set of seeds will go from the chamomile and into soil today.

Today a seedling popped up in the second Aji Habanero pot, so that leaves only a Chupetinho White from the first batch of pots with no germination so far.

Tonight when I got home from work I did the second set of chilli seeds, comprising of varying numbers of seeds of each of:

Ancho Poblano
Biquinho Red
Biquinho Yellow
Candy Cane Choc Cherry
CC Jalapeño
KhangStarr Lingria
KhangStarr StarrLing
KhangStarr Sweet QueenHi
Numex Twilight
Pimentos de Padron (lots)
Jalapeño, Yellow
Trepaderia Werner
Trinidad Perfume
Yaki Blue

Some of these are just filler really, I've way too many chilli seelings happening... this brings it to 57 seedling pots planted, with 2x seeds in most of them, so depending how I pot on this could easily be anywhere beyond 80 potential plants. I will certainly do some culling, but even then have too many. Hopefully can find folks to give some away to.

Ooops, it has somehow been a whole week since I last posted about my chillies! Germination of the chillies in the previous post is now well underway, with nine pots moved to the #GrowShelf from the #HotFridge.

The varieties germinated so far are:

2x Biquinho Red
2x Biquinho Yellow
1x CC Jalapeño
2x KhangStarr StarrLing
2x Trepaderia Werner

Note that I count "per pot" rather than per-seed, so some of these I have more of and an option to grow-on extras, for example there are actually 3x seedlings of each of the 2x above.

#Chillies #Peppers #ChiliPeppers #GYO

On the grow shelf right now there are 53 germinated seedlings in 36 little pots.

There are a further 20 pots of further hopeful germinations in the hot fridge.

Me... go overboard? Never... 😅

Lotte Is Antifa-scist 🚩Feb 8

@yvan thank you for the inspiration, I had to do some searching but I found gochugaru seeds, hope to find them in the mail this week. My pepper seed setup is already waiting!

@cookingroffa this is our second attempt at a variety to make a gochugaru. Of course many medium/light red chillies/peppers can make a red chilli flake... but we are trying to match the usual tubs of gochugaru we order.

We last tried a variety called Beaver Dam, it had the right (low/medium) heat level but it was too fleshy to make a decent flake. (Made a very good hot paprika though!)

Lotte Is Antifa-scist 🚩Feb 8

@yvan this is the one I ordered https://peperhof.be/product/zaden-gochugaru/
I have the feeling that there's not really a convention on naming the different peppers, at least I didn't find Latin names for the sub varieties beyond capsicum annuum and I think the same peppers have different names in different countries or maybe the names even differ from grower to grower?

@cookingroffa yeah, the varietal naming is a total minefield! As is the breeding. And I think gochugaru isn't necessarily made from a single specific type of chilli anyway... there is more of a range of cultivars.

Those ones look like the right sort of thing!

rooftopjaxx Feb 4

@yvan Why chamomile and not 'proper tea'?

@rooftopjaxx chamomile is supposed to have some antiseptic/antifungal properties whilst I don't think "proper tea" has the same compounds.

I think the science proving anything either way is pretty limited, but there does seem to be some: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-08802-9

And James Wong also uses chamomile as a disinfectant: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/21/why-terrarium-plants-like-a-cup-of-chamomile-tea-beat-the-mould

I find a plain water soak helps a lot with speedy germination and a chamomile soak doesn't seem to hurt, so I use chamomile. I have never tried an A/B test with other tea varieties myself.

Investigation of the production and antifungal properties of nanocapsules containing chamomile essential oil - Scientific Reports

Our study aims to investigate the production of nanocapsules containing chamomile essential oil and assess their antifungal properties. We have developed a technological process for producing nanocapsules, selected chamomile raw materials, extracted the essential oil, and conducted research on the antimicrobial activity of nanocapsules against four fungal cultures: Candida albicans CGMCC 2.538, Aspergillus fumigatus CGMCC 3.5925, Trichophyton rubrum CGMCC 3.3777 and Epidermophyton floccosum CGMCC 3.3722. Our research revealed significant antimicrobial activity of chamomile-containing nanocapsules against all tested fungi. The zones of fungal inhibition varied depending on the oil concentration and were statistically significant (P < 0.05). The obtained results hold practical significance for the development of antimicrobial agents based on plant oils in the treatment of fungal infections. Further research may focus on the molecular mechanisms of chamomile oil’s action, clinical trials in humans, and the optimization of nanocapsule formulations. These steps may contribute to the development of more effective and targeted antimicrobial agents for combating fungal infections and improving patient health.

Nature

rooftopjaxx Feb 4

@yvan OK, there are those, including our favourite Green, that insist it's either the mild acidity or the actual tannin in proper tea that does the trick
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A-T8E4sdM0o

If You Want To Succeed At GROWING CHILLIES? Watch This

YouTube

@rooftopjaxx yeah, I've read/watched content that uses both brown tea and green tea too... but chamomile is the one I've seen the most non-random and at least semi-scientific endorsement for.

Green tea is probably more likely to be effective than brown/fermented tea I gather.

I suspect they probably all work about equally well and that the biggest win in terms of germination is likely to be just from a water soak to soften the seed shell.

@rooftopjaxx this claims in favour of green tea over other teas: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372109443_Antifungal_efficiency_of_different_forms_of_tea_extract_Camellia_sinensis_against_Candida_albicans_An_in_vitro_experimental_study

I also suspect you'd get better protection against things like "damping off" by misting post-germination than from seed soaking, a la the James Wong article.

@rooftopjaxx apparently if you're feeling particularly hipster then rooibos is also an option.