How to Grow Thai Hot Chilis
Posted in Personal Miscellany
on March 8th, 2009 by
Stephen DeGrace
In the spring of 2008, I bought a little package of Thai hot chili peppers at Sobey's. These were ripe, red peppers. Thai hot chilis are very small peppers, maybe an inch long max. Just for fun, I cut one open and planted the seeds. They grew, and I got quite a lot of chilis back. By request, here's what to do if you want to grow your own:
1. Get a large pot, maybe 8" minimum. These little buggers will really grow. I had to repot mine like four times. While the plants proved very tolerant to transplantation, you can save yourself some trouble by picking a large pot in the first place.
2. Plant about six seeds, about 1 cm deep and about 2 cm apart. I used a ripe, red pepper, a bit past its prime. I planted a dozen or so and close together because I would afraid they wouldn't germinate. They all germinated. I did cull some but I didn't have the heart to rip up as much as I should have, so my plant ended up crowded.
3. Cats love these things when they're seedlings. My brother tried to grow some and his cats killed off most of them. I had to take custody of the survivors.
4. It takes them a couple weeks to germinate, just keep watering them every day and be patient.
5. These guys love water, light and heat. They almost can't get enough of all three. Water them every day and be generous, especially when they get bigger. They like being by a window.
6. When the plant is a few months old, my experience is that it has a massive growth spurt. Everybody says that you might need a stick to support them when they grow, but my experience has been that they support themselves very well at all ages and never need to be tied to a stick.
7. It takes maybe three to four months from the time you plant it to the time you first see flowers.
8. If you want peppers, you have to polinate the flowers. Assuming you don't have any handy bees in your house, you'll have to do this yourself. You will see in the centre of each flower a long protrusion (the pistil) and surrounding it a group of black bodies (the stamens) which eventually are covered with yellow dust. The yellow dust is the pollen. You need to get some of this dust on your finger and gently rub the tips of the pistils of as many flowers as are open against this dust. Congratulations, you have just had kinky plant sex.
9. The flowers drop off and the peppers start growing. They are green at first and grow to up to an inch and a half long. They grow to full size before turning red.
10. They take a little while to turn red, but be patient, they will.
11. You can harvest them and eat them green or wait until they turn red.
12. You will notice that some flowers drop off without ever forming a pepper, and that also over time the leaves drop off, starting with the ones on the stems. This appears to be natural - mine has been doing this for months and still is a good producer.
13. I assume they die at some point - either that, or they just get too big and ragged and you want them out of the house. In that case you might want to have your next peppers already growing.
14. My plant went dormant once and stopped producing but has started again, so don't assume that the plant is done just because it isn't producing anymore.
Comments:
There are 2 comments on this item.
On October 8th, 2010
Craig Rachow
wrote:
sorry did not realise html was off. site it http://growingchillies.net/easy-to-grow-chili-birds-eye-chilis/
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On October 8th, 2010 Craig Rachow
wrote:
very nice write up. i too have a chili blog, come check it out.
<a href="http://growingchillies.net/easy-to-grow-chili-birds-eye-chilis">Growing Chili</a>