It’s chilli growing season and what better way to warm up your winter than to grow your very own spicy chillies! Follow our step by step guide to instant chilli success.
Step 1. Planting your seeds
- Plant chilli seeds from January through to March and grow indoors
- Plant in a pot or tray using multipurpose compost
- Space seeds about 5cms apart
- Lightly cover seeds with about 0.5cm of compost and spray tray lightly with water.
Step 2. Growing your plant (Duration: 7 weeks)
- Optimum temperature is roughly 70 degrees
- Place by a sunny windowsill or in greenhouse
- Spray with a little water if the compost looks a bit dry
- Once seedlings have poked their heads out, give them plenty of light.
Step 3. Repotting your plant (Duration: 12 weeks)
- Once the second set of leaves has developed, re-pot each plant in its own pot – about 10cm in diameter
- To repot, hold each plant by the leaves to avoid damaging the stem or the root. Then using a pencil to break the compost, tease it out each individual plant
- Grow indoors for a further 12 weeks.
Step 4. Growing your plant outdoors (Duration: 8 weeks)
- Once the risk of frost passes, typically around late May, you can put the plants outside, initially for just a few hours a day.
- Grow outdoors for 2 months
- Pick your very own homemade chillies!
