Trust your instincts

It is very easy to get excited about a new plantation. After all you made the effort of obtaining the chilli varieties that get your blood going and spent time and money providing the seeds with the perfect environment for them to grow into sturdy plants. After all that careful planning though you know that the time is near when you need to let the resulting seedlings “fly the nest” and make it in this world on their own with a little bit of help still from your green thumb from time to time, obviously

Gauging when to put your plants outside can sometimes be a bit tricky though. Do it too soon and you risk damaging the plants with a sudden frost or heat burst, do it too late and they end up taking way too much space and become root bound and impossible to repot.

Using your common sense goes without saying of course but if like us you have a lot riding on your plantation or just wants to know you have done everything for your chilli plant to come to maturity then monitoring the outside temperature every day from April onwards is a good start. Weather forecasts can notoriously be very wrong but most of the time they can be reliable enough to make the right decision when the time comes.

If you are still hesitant though then you could always go to plan B i.e providing just enough heat for the chilli plant to be comfortable in while adapting to warmer days. You could do that by heating your home or greenhouse with an electric or gas implement but we find that putting a fleece or horticultural bubble wrap (the normal kind will get destroyed by the sun and humidity in no time) on a frame over the plants is a cheap and easy way to protect a plantation. In our case our plants are still in propagators and although we have started turning them down and even off on certain days, it is still too cold at night for the plants not to be snuggly tucked in with said bubble wrap over them. If you live in a place with really unfortunate weather, plan C would be to place a heat mat under the pots for the soil to keep at an even temperature for as long as possible.

Most plants from the Annuum family are rather sturdy but if like us you can’t get enough of superhot treats such as Trinidad Scorpion, Habaneros, Fatalii or a Naga then a little bit of extra TLC is always welcome as plants from the Chinense family from which most superhot chilli plants derive are a bit more fragile than their Annuum, Baccatum, Frutescens and Pubescens cousins.

For any advice, feel free to contact us from our site www.bountifulseeds.com and we shall do our best to help you produce chilli plants crawling under the weight of gorgeous spicy fruits!

 

Repotting Etiolated Chilli Plants

Now, in an ideal world, you and I would have a large greenhouse in a very sunny location where the temperature and humidity levels stay the same all year round as well as the latest growing equipment available and many invisible hands to help out or better yet, a warehouse fully kitted out with hydroponic pots and artificial lights. The reality is a bit different though and let’s face it, most growers (professionals or amateurs) just use any bit of space they can find to start up plants at the beginning of the year, whether it is cooking herbs, vegetables or chillies of course…

So if like us (once we run out of space in our polytunnels) you struggle to find sunny windowsills, garden borders or random scraps of land, the seeds that you so carefully and lovingly planted can quickly become etiolated (leggy to you and me) as they struggle and climb as high as they can in order to find more light. A lot of our customers worry that the plant will not survive when this happens and tend to give up on their plantation but do not fret as the situation can easily be sorted out at the repotting stage.

All you need to do when transferring into another pot is to delicately sink the seedling deeper into the soil and try and get as close to the first set of leaves as you can. Do not go over the leaves as this might cause mold issues. Your initial sad-looking little seedling will automatically straighten out and the added benefit is that roots will soon appear along the part of the stem that is buried, giving you a better root ball while making your stems stronger as more light becomes available. With days getting longer and the temperature rising as summer approaches, the stems of your seedlings should thicken up nicely and become strong healthy plants that can and will produce many spicy fruits for you to enjoy!

Repotting has begun

It might only be mid-March but we have been blessed with great weather lately in our neck of the woods. Far from being rainy or cold, the sun has been shining for days in a bright blue and cloudless sky, with temperatures averaging close to 20 degrees. Our chilli plantation is definitely liking this unseasonal weather but we are very aware that a cold front might swoop in like last year and ruin everything so for now our youngest plants are still tucked away in heated propagators in a greenhouse that thankfully reaches above 30 degrees at the height of the day.

We were hoping to keep all of our plants under natural light for as long as possible but the germination rate has been so promising that we soon ran out of room despite sowing our chilli seeds into party cups initially, in order to maximise space. The same thing happened last year so this time round we were more than prepared with our homemade chilli prison (see pics on our facebook page)… we have access to a heated utility room where we are able to store our plants under lights in custom-made shelves that can hold up to 200 plants each and since there are still more than five hundred plants to repot into individual party cups and then 1.5 litre hadopots (flexlible plastic containers rather than solid ones) and more chillies from the prolific Annuum family popping up every day, our hands are definitely full! We hope not to run out of room entirely in the chilli prison before spring comes but in view of the mild weather we have had so far, we are rather hopeful.

Business is still going well and we have had very interesting orders from all over the world in the last few weeks. All of our energy is spent on our plantation at the moment so it is a good thing that we took advantage of the winter months to sort out paperwork, new stock and website maintenance.

We will keep posting pictures of our plants’ progress on our Facebook page so please pop over and like it if you have not done so already. Any help in spreading the word about Bountiful Seeds ensures that we get the means to offer you the best of what the chilli world has to offer all year round. If there are still varieties that you would like to see appear on our website then let us know as soon as possible, especially if they are Chinense as these take a while to germinate. We cannot wait to see how certain species are going to do, especially the ones we haven’t grown before but will make sure to keep you posted of any progress!

And so it begins…..

Things might have been quiet on the writing front lately but trust us, January has been far from restful! At Bountiful Seeds we know how important it is to get the plantation for the coming year started early so much of our time in the last few weeks has been taken up with clearing bits and pieces from our three polytunnels and getting the growing equipment out of its boxes.

Choosing the varieties to sow for this chilli season has been rather difficult as we have some very interesting species that only ask to be grown but we decided to plant 90% of seeds for business purposes and 10% for experiments and the pleasure of our own tastebuds of course!

Only chillies from the Chinense family have been sown yet (after soaking the seeds a good twelve hours in warm water) as they are the ones that take the longest to germinate and after less than two weeks in our large heated propagators we already have over three hundred plants so a good start so far. The weather here is rather mild for the time of year which is great but we just hope there isn’t a frost coming up like last year to wreck things.

The next step is planting chillies from the Annuum family which should take a while as we have hundreds of seeds but the fun will be seeing all the lovely different varieties pop up and develop into wonderful plants of all shapes and sizes with a foliage ranging from light green to dark purple.

After spending a lot of money on new equipment last year we have only made one investment this year which is on hadopots. Rather than having solid pots we thought we would try these plastic ones that can be found in many different sizes. We shall see if they stand the test of time but for the cost and convenience of them we think they might be the way to go for future plantations.

We have a lot of hopes for this year’s crop and cannot wait to see everything mature into wonderful pods so we can harvest the seeds for you all but for now remember that we already have plenty of great seed varieties awaiting your green thumb so visit our shop and grow your own tasty chillies!

NEW! Gift Vouchers & Multipacks

Need a last minute present? Why not get one of our new Bountiful Seeds’ Gift Vouchers?

A Gift Voucher is a quick and easy way to fulfil someone’s chilli dreams and can be used throughout the year for any occasion, birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Father’s Day or just because you want to put a smile on someone’s face!

Our vouchers are worth £10, £15 and £20 and with delivery already free on our site from £10 of purchase, your loved ones can spend every last penny on some of the dozens of chilli seed varieties we have in stock.

Our themed multipacks which will develop over time in categories such as Ornamentals, Discovery, Bountiful Seeds’ Favourites and many more are also a great way for people to try their luck or target their purchase to their true needs.

All gift vouchers (sent in JPEG format via email) are valid for a year from the date of purchase which gives plenty of time for the recipient to have a think and get things going at their own pace.

So do not waste any more time and click here for more information.

Smoking Chillies

As we regrettably enter the very end of the 2013 chilli season some of you might be left with some chillies, either fresh or frozen during summer for use come winter.

Of course we are the first ones to incite people to use their crop to make beautiful fresh chilli jams, oils, chutneys and much much more but if you want to try something a bit different then why not smoke your pods?

Pretty much any chilli can be smoked from a Jalapeno to a Moruga Scorpion although cold smoking is the best option as you wouldn’t want your chillies to cook when using a hot smoker. We use a ProQ cold smoker generator combined with a home-made box with trays in order to maximise the use of space and it works like a charm.

In order to smoke chillies you need to cut open the pods (you can leave the seeds in if you wish) to allow the smoke to enter the flesh as much as possible, you can of course halve them as well if you are in a bit of a rush for them to be done. Our ProQ runs for about 10 to 12 hours each time but you can double that time if you want your chillies to achieve that heartier smoky flavour that so many people go crazy for.

Choosing the right type of wood dust to smoke chillies is important and many different flavours can be achieved but out of all the ones available out there (Pine, Beech, Cherry, Apple, Alder, etc…) we have to admit that good old Oak is our favourite.

Once the smoking is done you need to dehydrate your pods which can be done in a few different ways. We use a traditional dehydrator (prices start at £30 usually) but you can use the oven on low temperature for a few hours and even air dry them if you have an airing cupboard (although beware that you laundry might take on the smoky smell!).

Once dried out keep the smoked pods in a sealed container away from light or turn them into powder or flakes. Trust us, nothing beats a good chilli con carne with a bit of smokiness to it or even better, a smoking hot (pardon the pun!) sweet potato soup or chicken stuffing but the possibilities are truly endless so let your imagination run wild!

It’s all part of the fun…

So here we are, approaching the end of the chilli season which has had its ups and downs this year, much like a lot of other growers who don’t have the luxury of owning a heated greenhouse full of hydroponics but we are in no way disappointed by our crop and have been rewarded for our hard work with numerous sturdy plants who have given us a lot of fresh stock of seeds for next year.

One thing is for sure, this year has been a real learning curve, mostly when it comes to dealing with the many daily challenges that growing sensitive plants present such as insects (which we refuse to kill using harsh chemicals), lack of nutrients in the soil and of course heat fluctuations. Finding the technical, physical and financial means to further the business has also been a challenge but that’s what makes the journey interesting and through our many followers on Twitter and Facebook we have made good hew contacts and treasured the output of old ones.

Our plans for the coming weeks is to harvest the many chillies that are still growing on our plants, drying the stock, clearing out the polytunnels and of course getting ready for the new 2014 plantation (which along with the arrival of a new little human being in our midst should be a very interesting and busy time indeed!).

We have over 250 varieties of seeds to chose from to grow for the 2014 so making a final decision as to what to grow will be tough but exciting. As always we shall be growing the “old faithful” varieties such as Scotch Bonnets, Habaneros, Jalapenos and Trinidad Scorpions but shall also add a few rarer varieties to see if they grow out true to form from the seeds that we have.

You might think there is still plenty of time to start growing chillies for next year but trust us, the sooner you start the bigger the reward come the end of summer! So get yourself a few packets of seeds while stock lasts and enjoy seeing a tiny little gem turn into a full fledged plant crawling under the weight of beautiful, spicy and tasty chillies!

Testing, Testing!

As you all know, chilli plants are delicate creatures that need to be constantly watched over and cared for. In order to provide the best for our plantation this year we decided to test a new seaweed-based plant feed and to stick with it for the rest of the season to see how it truly goes.

Before placing a bulk order we initially tested a small batch of the stuff and compared it to another commercially available one that we had used in the past few weeks. Technically they are more or less the same but after careful comparisons we realised that truly the former is like a fresh roast dinner with all the trimmings straight out of the oven when the latter is more like a frozen meal for one from Tesco. They might have the same ingredients but it’s what you do with it which makes all the difference.

So who is the provider of such a wonderful Seaweed feed? Well it’s from Shropshire Seaweed in the UK, who are 100 miles from the sea. Yes, a company that makes awesome seaweed products and isn’t even next to the sea – the mind boggles.

So without wanting to appear really commercial, we have a rule at Bountiful Seeds that when we find a good supplier of anything, we promote them the best we can so you can find Shropshire Seaweed products online from their website and also from their amazon shop. For the socialites out there they also have a Facebook page that you may want to visit to keep up to date with any information they share.

For now our plants are thriving on this seaweed feed and we cannot wait to see them reach full maturity so keep an eye out for our latest updates and pics!

Leaps and Bounds

We haven’t written to you folks in a while and there is a very good reason for that: we’ve been madly busy with incoming website orders and general tending to our ever expanding crop of gorgeous chilli plants but most of all a very exciting delivery arrived a few weeks ago, namely… our two brand spanking new polytunnels!!

The delivery of course happened on the rainiest day of the year by far so we had to act quickly as the pallet was slowly sinking into the muddy ground, and move each component of the tunnels by hand to a safer location. As with the order of our first polytunnel, First Tunnels had done a fantastic job at packaging everything very well, with clearly numbered labels that were crucial in the building process that followed.

The weather gods were of course not with us so it was a couple of weeks before we could envisage marking our land with the all-important measures and making final decisions at to the exact location of the tunnel. So rather than stay put and twiddle our thumbs we decided to take extra care of our little plants which are actually not so little anymore and rather showing great promise. The ones that were in our “chilli prison” (see former blog post) have been allowed to go outside for a few hours every day to see how they coped with the change of temperature but were of course all nice and cozy back inside during the night as the temperatures are still fairly cold, averaging 6 degrees. Our plants in the tunnel are taller as they were the first ones to be started off and don’t need any heating anymore but rather enjoying the warmth the sunlight now brings in the tunnel.

The delay with building the new polytunnels have allowed us to really shop around for wholesale pots, soil and fabric to isolate the various species at the height of summer and although we are still not entirely sorted out when it comes to the soil we have found great deals when it comes to containers and cloth.

The weather being a tad more merciful in the past few days it was all hands on deck to start building what will hopefully be a good home to our 700 chilli plants (plus a few tomato plants, garden herbs and of course strawberries!!!). We decided to start with the smaller one of the two polytunnels to reacquaint ourselves with the technique needed and after a bit of trial and error the frame was quickly mounted and the plastic sheeting secured over it. Instead of a hard wood floor we decided this time to use a dark plastic fabric that when looked at a bit closer is full of tiny holes in order to facilitate drainage and avoid rotting the roots of our plants by allowing water to stagnate. Upon completion a bottle of bubbly was opened (any excuse, we know…) to celebrate such an achievement and maybe also to give us a bit of Dutch courage for the build of the second polytunnel… The cork was subsequently nailed to the front door, a tradition that we mean to keep up when we have a 30+ polytunnels chilli farm (well… that’s the dream so don’t burst our bubble just yet!).

The second polytunnel build was started shortly after the first as we didn’t want to lose momentum but although the members of the Bountiful Seeds’ team would consider themselves to be of average “fitness”, our workers soon felt the weight (literally!) of having to carry the various elements to the site and kneeling down for a few hours in a row in order to adjust the 40 ft long main frame and then the plastic cover. But despite a few downpours of rain (and a particularly windy day when we decided to put the cover on of course) the spirits remained high and the extent of our folly courageous endeavor soon became apparent.

Once again a cork had to be nailed to the front door so what better way than to open another bottle of bubbly and discuss small matters of layout, watering and plant care that are going to be the next phase of our plantation. For now the biggest job is to transfer all of our chilli plants into their final 8-12l pots so we can see them prosper into wonderful producers of spicy and tasty chilli pods!

One huge decision still needs to be made though, i.e choosing a name for each of the polytunnels. Indeed, rather than call them pol1, pol2 and pol3 we thought it would be more auspicious to name them after Gods of Fertility so after a bit of searching we have come up with a few possibilities. Should we ask for your opinion and have you choose for us?

Breaking News: Chillies on the loose!

So… we started 2013 with a bang having several big wholesale orders to fulfil for later on in the year and therefore wasted no time in planting many a variety of chilli seed, not only for these particular orders but also to provide you, the general public, with the best of what the chilli seed world currently has to offer.

What we maybe foolishly didn’t foresee is how well these chilli plants would be doing. Indeed, we have had close to 95% germination rate so far which is great news and very rewarding for us… but also means that we’ve ended up with hundreds of seedlings to deal with. Watering and tending to these is easy enough generally but we realised that space was soon becoming a big issue despite our spacious setup and keeping these babies under a perfect balance of heat and light to promote growth and health was proving to be rather costly.

Our thinking hats therefore came out of their boxes and we spent quite a lot of time working out a solution that would not only meet our needs but also and mostly those of the chilli plants which of course our priority. Heating up our main polytunnel was out of the question straightway as using a fuel heater would be too dangerous and the cost of electricity being what it is at the moment, any professional fan heater would just end up being too costly. That left us with only one solution: finding a place indoors that would have a constant temperature and would be easy of access on a daily basis.

We settled our choice on a basement room that is usually used for laundry and kept at an average temperature of 20 degrees. The only conditions to Bountiful Seeds using it until the weather is more merciful?  Keeping things clean, not taking too much space and making sure the household cats don’t mess with the plants.

Ensued an interesting shopping trip and even more head-scratching, working out of the measurements for a shelving unit that would not only be big enough to contain all of the individual plants that are taking too much space in our polytunnel at the moment but also meet the aforesaid three conditions of the householders.

The result? A custom-made sturdy structure on wheels that has two shelves of 55 cm X 180 cm each surrounded by mesh on three sides in order to protect the plants from the cats (we simply have to pull the structure away from the wall to tend to the plants). T8 strip lights (which are very economical) have been positioned using hooks therefore allowing us to raise or lower them at will depending on the plants’ growth.

We still have a few trays of plants to repot but should be able to hold at least 450 plants in that special shelving unit which has been branded “the chilli prison” due to its stern look although it is more of a three star hotel for them really! We shall post photos shortly of both growing methods i.e the plants in the shelving unit indoors and the ones in the main polytunnel that are in a heated propagator or real sunlight if the weather allows it.