by Kris Collins | Dec 24, 2015 | Gardening News, Gardening Posts
From the creators of the ground breaking Tomtato® comes Egg & Chips®
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Kris Collins works as Thompson & Morgan’s quality control manager, making sure customers new and old are kept up to date on the latest plant developments and company news via a wide range of media sources. He trained in London’s Royal Parks and has spent more than a decade writing for UK gardening publications before joining the team at Thompson & Morgan.
by Kris Collins | Sep 21, 2015 | Chilli Blog - with Kris Collins, Gardening Posts
Back in March, I challenged the members of my local gardening club to a chilli challenge.
All were given a packet of Chilli ‘Numex Twilight’, my favourite chilli for windowsill growing – it’s a manageable size for indoor growing, and at its peak you end up with a rainbow of decorative chillies that will get the admiration of anyone visiting the house.
I set two classes for the challenge – most number of chillies on one plant, and the healthiest looking chilli plant. To level the playing field I provided everyone with a stash of 2 litre pots and the plants had to be grown in these. Other than this they had free reign on compost choice, fertiliser and training (staking, pinching out, etc).
Last Saturday I joined everyone at the local village hall for the end of season flower and produce show. I had been looking forward to seeing how everyone got on, but on Friday evening it suddenly hit me that I’d potentially given myself a really big task. “Why on earth did I choose most number of chillies as a category!?” I had visions of me being there all day, constantly losing count and starting again.
So as I sheepishly entered the hall I was relieved to see ten plants for judging with varied crops of chillies on them.
All the plants had chillies that I would easily recognise as Numex Twilight, but it was interesting to see the variation in habit and size. One reached well over 3½ foot while another wasn’t much more than 18inches high. Most had the small leaves expected of the variety while one or two had large leaves rivalling sweet pepper plants.
Lowest chilli count was 1 (an easy job for me!). Yet I awarded this plant third place in the healthiest plant category – lush foliage with plenty of life left in it for cropping through winter.
The heaviest cropping plant had 203 fruits on it, although none of them had yet ripened. The plant looked so healthy too, that I also gave it 1st place in the second category.
Judging was carried out in the morning, I then returned for the open show in the afternoon, bringing with me my best Numex Twilight plant to show the rainbow of colours that everyone could expect from their plants. Winners announced, I was called on to read out the raffle winners, many of whom went home with Thompson & Morgan seeds for sowing next season. Winners of the chilli categories received seeds of my 10 favourite Thompson & Morgan chillies plus a book on chillies kindly donated by another member.
I received many a compliment for my chilli plant (admittedly grown in larger pot, but fed just once back in June).Returning home I decided to make a feature of it in the kitchen. Setting it alongside my chilli chain – a mix of chillies picked from my plants, all strung together with a needle and thread (the needle goes through the stalks so the fruit is undamaged). These are then hung to dry out ready for a long life of varied uses in the kitchen.
I hope you are all doing as well with your plants. I’d love to see how you are getting on, post your photos on the Thompson & Morgan Facebook page.
Find more chilli articles, growers guides and a few tasty recipes at our chillies & sweet peppers hub page.
Kris Collins works as Thompson & Morgan’s quality control manager, making sure customers new and old are kept up to date on the latest plant developments and company news via a wide range of media sources. He trained in London’s Royal Parks and has spent more than a decade writing for UK gardening publications before joining the team at Thompson & Morgan.
by Kris Collins | Jul 30, 2015 | Gardening Posts
Some people swear by it, others are nay sayers. After a weekend at the Jimmy’s Farm Sausage and Beer Festival, we’re convinced that plants thrive on music. The plants on our Show Garden have looked great since it opened to the public in early July, but exposed to a weekend of live music from the likes of Toploader, Chas & Dave and the Ben Waters Band, all our flowering varieties seem to have hit their peak.
We’ve looked into the science of it, and there are many studies showing that music can promote stronger plant growth. We’re certainly on our way to being firm believers.
Of course, it could all be down to using Incredicompost® and Incredibloom® in every basket and container on show – our comparative compost and fertiliser trials show it is capable of producing up to 400 per cent more blooms than plants given no feed.
We have also heard that talking to your plants helps growth. Alongside Prince Charles, many of our facebook followers admit to talking to their plants to help them grow. Do you talk to your plants? Do you do it to help them grow or do you find companionship in doing so? We would love to know!
Kris Collins works as Thompson & Morgan’s quality control manager, making sure customers new and old are kept up to date on the latest plant developments and company news via a wide range of media sources. He trained in London’s Royal Parks and has spent more than a decade writing for UK gardening publications before joining the team at Thompson & Morgan.
by Kris Collins | Jul 10, 2015 | Chilli Blog - with Kris Collins, Gardening Posts
Having looked at how to keep your chilli plants cool during summer extremes in my last update, I thought I’d flip the focus this time and look at ways of packing extra heat into your chillies.
All chilli varieties fall within their own heat range on the Scoville Heat Scale. If you are new to the scale, the ratings simply represent the number of drops of water needed to dilute the heat of the chilli until you can no longer feel the heat in your mouth. Luckily plant scientists have done this for us so we don’t need to find out the hard way!
Some growers often report a lack of heat in their chillies after harvest, despite growing some of the hotter strains. Fortunately, there are a few simple tricks you can employ to ensure your chillies top out at the high end of their Scoville range.
A lack of heat is often down to treating the plants too well during the growing season – the heat in a chilli is the plant’s defence mechanism against environmental stress (drought and excessive sunshine/heat) and hungry animals munching on the plants in the wild – interestingly only mammals are affected by the heat in chillies, birds and reptiles can eat them with no ill effect.
Give your chilli plants too much comfort during the growing season and they think there is no need to pack their fruits with heat (sorry to anthropomorphise, I try not to do this when it comes to plants and animals but sometimes it can’t be helped!).
So, to increase the heat and produce fiery chillies the answer is simple – a bit of harsh treatment and tricking them into thinking they are under animal attack.
The first tip to hotter chillies is to allow a good drying period before each watering, even letting the plants wilt for half a day or so before giving them a good drink. I did this earlier in the week, As you can see, having let the plants droop, they soon picked up after a good watering. Don’t do this too many times as it will eventually weaken the plant and have a negative effect, but 3 or 4 times through the season should get the results you want without long term damage to the plant.
Secondly, make the plant feel it is under attack from a hungry herbivore – once a week scrunch a few leaves by hand, even snap the odd side stem, and the plant will think it is being eaten and pack extra heat into its fruit to prevent future attacks.
Thirdly, pump up the heat. Grow two of the same chilli variety in your greenhouse, one at floor level and one as high up on shelving as possible where temperatures will be higher (hot air rises). You’ll notice on eating that the chillies picked from the plant on the floor will be cooler to taste than those picked from the plants on high. Similarly grow one on a windowsill and another in the garden – the garden plant will produce cooler chillies than the one grown in the warmth of the house.
And finally, there is the cheat’s way. I’ve never tried this but I’ve heard that by adding a hot chilli sauce like Tabasco to your watering can, you will transfer the heat to your chillies. You can even try this with sweet peppers and tomatoes and turn them hot. I’d love someone to give this a go on their tomatoes and let me know the results!
Head to our dedicated hub page for more excellent tips, chilli and sweet pepper growing guides, and variety specific advice.
Kris Collins works as Thompson & Morgan’s quality control manager, making sure customers new and old are kept up to date on the latest plant developments and company news via a wide range of media sources. He trained in London’s Royal Parks and has spent more than a decade writing for UK gardening publications before joining the team at Thompson & Morgan.
by Kris Collins | Jul 2, 2015 | Chilli Blog - with Kris Collins, Gardening Posts
The sunshine is here at last – but don’t let conservatory and greenhouse chillies frazzle in the excessive heat. Temperatures hit 48C in my south-facing conservatory yesterday and I’m expecting even higher temperatures today. Luckily I had the foresight to move my chillies outside onto the patio before I left for work, where a fresh breeze kept them cooler in the summer sunshine. I’ve done the same today and given them a good drink to get them through the day.
If you can’t move your plants outside during peaks of hot weather, make sure to water them heavily in the morning during hot spells – check them again in the evening for dryness. In a greenhouse you can ‘dampen down’ to raise humidity and lower temperatures, this simply means wetting all surfaces – floors, glass, benching etc.
This isn’t practical in a conservatory. But you can do a couple of things to cool things down and raise the humidity. Firstly, spray foliage with a fine mist of water to keep them cool. You can also sit your pots on a tray of damp gravel or clay pebbles (hydroleca) this will create a humid micro climate around you plants, reducing the risk of leaf frazzle during the midday sun.
With the sun out, I’m bringing a touch of Spain to my dinner tonight. My first lot of padron peppers are ready to pick tonight, so I’ll be making a classic tapas dish to eat alfresco this evening – padrons lightly fried in olive oil, sprinkled in salt and eaten hole (minus the stalks!) – Simple but delicious!
Kris Collins works as Thompson & Morgan’s quality control manager, making sure customers new and old are kept up to date on the latest plant developments and company news via a wide range of media sources. He trained in London’s Royal Parks and has spent more than a decade writing for UK gardening publications before joining the team at Thompson & Morgan.
