Out in the chilli house the plants are doing pretty well. Maybe I’m being a bit impatient but growth seems to be a little slower than expected this year. I suspect it is the cool nights that are impeding growth rates. As a result I’ve started heating the grow house at night with my little electric Parasene greenhouse heater.
Chilli Light Cycles
It is important to alow young seedlings some break from grow lights. As a result I’ve got the plants having about 5 hours darkness each night, followed by about 6 hours under the CFL grow lights followed by the daytime on a sunny shelf inside.
Hopefully this new routine and extra night time heat will help to speed up growth. Also, the nice sunny weather we’ve been having has helped to really up daytime temperatures to over 30 degrees.
The One that doesn’t give up
Lurking in the back of the chilli house I spotted the Super Chilli F1 plant that got scorched early on last year. When I over wintered a selection of plants last year I also left a few plants in the grow house with full foliage and fruit on.
This Super Chilli has been watered and just left to it. It’s looking a bit sorry for itself right now with dried up fruit from last autumn, dead leaves and even a nice collection of aphid eggs but remarkably it is sprouting lots of new growth.
This just goes to show the resilience of chilli plants. Despite a severe scorching last Spring and being heavily neglected all winter it looks like this plant will reward me with another season of pods. I must get round to giving it a good tidy up as a reward for making it through the winter.
