Home Grown 2011: Chilli Grow Update

Its almost full harvest time here for my chilli crops! I have been testing this year for the first time the chiligrow from greenhouse sensation. I started with a store bought Hungarian Hot Wax, home grown Jalapeno and finally my Krakatoa chili plant is in its third year picked up from the west dean chilli fiesta which was looking on its last legs. My last update from July showed very health plants and as you can see below at the en of August each plant is looking full,  healthy and most importantly full of chilli's! Each plant continues to fruit still, I have decided to leave as many of the chilli's on as possible to get really ripe fruit this year rather than picking them for a larger crop.

I met the nice folk at Greenhouse sensation at this years west dean chilli fiesta and they were very friendly. The even gave me some fresh chili peppers and and chilli chocolate just for being a customer! I can whole heatedly recommend picking yourself up a chilli grow for your back garden. Whether you are a newbie, seasoned grower or just after a better crop with a bit less effort the chiligrow. Ill be picking up another one or two units for next year definitely.

Above is my mini chili greenhouse made with a number of spare bricks and a cold frame plonked on without the aid of the chilli grow these have done well due to late starts and not enough loving care they are a little smaller with less fruit.

 The chilli pepper nasu above i fed with the leftover chemicals for the chilli grow water reservoir and as you can see since stripping the plant bare from chillis in July i have a full sent i can harvest again already for my next meal!

Can you find any padron peppers in the supermarket this year? i cant, above I have a couple of padron plants I hope to get at least one meal from and a pyramid chilli plant where most of the peppers are ripening nicely ready to be preserved

Lastly for the veggie gardeners among you that grow chillis on the side I thought I'd include a picture of this years onion crop the will be filling my fajitas and spicy meals until the end of the year. 

I Hope your season has been successful too, ill try and post a picture of my harvest before I eat them all

Home Grown 2011: The ChilliGrow from Greenhouse Sensation

Throughout building this blog site and interacting with other keen chilli growers, I came across the ChilliGrow sold by Greenhouse Sensation. I have heard endless good reviews of this product and wanted to try it out for myself to boost my grow your own chili crop. So I have decided to put the chilli grow to the test! The ChilliGrow is designed together with the chilefoundry and also south Deavon chilli farm so already it has the seal of approval from two great groups who know their chilli.

Feeder Mat

Watering chilli plants correctly is hard even when you know what you are doing. The ChilliGrow does this for you using a 7 Litre water reservoir.

The three 6 litre pots looked quite big to me but the website assures me that this is the idea size to encourage both root and fruit growth. A nice touch is that the try is also drip proof so you can grow inside if you are restricted for space or perhaps in your greenhouse if you have one too.

The pots each have holes at the base to put through feeder mats that dip into the reservoir below. These will ensure that your plan remains perfectly watered.

Chilli Nutrients

In the pack you will also receive so real easy instructions and also some chili plant some nutrients to last you one season.

To see how good the good the chilligrow is and what it could do for my crops I have selected three different chilli plants. A Hungarian Hot Wax, Jalapeno and a Krakatoa.

The Hungarian Hot Wax is store bought from B&Q, the Jalapeno is home grown and finally my Krakatoa chilli plant is in its third year and has produced bumper crops the previous two years. What will happen??? I will let you know. Below is a picture of all three plants at of June 2011.



ChilliGrow