Having moved house 3 weeks ago i now have a conservatory/summerhouse that I am able to use as a chilli house. At my previous place the garden was very small and for the most part of the day, shaded. While I expected the extra heat and light of a conservatory to help speed up growth of my chilli plants I have been amazed by their progress in the last 3 weeks.
Thanks to their new home, and the good spell of English weather we’ve been having the plants have almost doubled in size in the last 15 days. As mentioned in my last post i’ve started to harden off the plants by moving them outside during the day. Thanks to the weather this hasn’t been to get them used to the cold so much as to prevent them from getting scorched in the conservatory! An added bonus is the heating in the conservatory that enables me to maintain night time temperatures of a min of 17 degrees which should help speed up their growth.
This weekend I potted most of my plants on yet again, this time into 20cm pots. Chilli plants like to keep their roots fairly dry so i add a handful of vermiculite to the compost in each pot to help with drainage.
While it is so hot i also try to water them both in the morning and the evening as they dry out very quickly in pots during such warm weather. If the weather stays so nice I won’t have to wait too much longer before they start to flower and produce fruit. At this point i’ll start adding some feed to help the fruiting process.
