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Chilli Chirps

@chillichirps.bsky.social

I grow things. Often chillies. And make things. Often sauces. London, UK

1294 Posts525 Follower303 Folgt
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2w ago

Committed a wrongness when I moved some plants around to share the diminishing light. This Red Basque's growth was supported by its neighbours, so it had no need to strengthen its stems. Once they'd moved, the slightest breeze made it split under the weight of its pods. Should have staked it 🙄 🌱🌶️

A red basque chilli plant. I don't know much about these, but a friend got seeds from Real Seeds and gave me a plant, It's not big, but it's quite productive, with thick-fleshed, jalapeno-shaped pods, and a good heat. There is space to the left and right, where previously it was shaded out by larger C. chinense plants.A close up of the base of the stem of the Red Basque chilli plant. It can be seen that of the three main branches, two have catastrophically snapped, one clean off and the other hanging by a couple of mm thickness.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2w ago

The small yellow sweet peppers (mystery pepper #1) are absolutely astonishing when stuffed with cheese 😋 These are roasted with a mix of herbs, cream cheese and goat cheese 🌶️🌱🍽️ (this time with pic 🙄)

10 halves of small yellow peppers stuffed with cheese, served on a plate decorated by one of my kids when they were small. The plate was a father's day gift, and features a red chilli with a face and arms and legs.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2w ago

Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry sweet peppers. Intense variegation, along with chunky flesh, makes these quite slow to ripen, but they're a real joy when they do. Like a stick of rock, the striping goes all the way through, so they look incredible when sliced into rings (will try to get a pic) 🌱🌶️

Five red peppers, flecked with raindrops, sit on a wooden table. They are oval in shape, striped with black, and about 3 inches long. The calyxes are striped green and cream.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 3w ago

I didn't have as many Peppadew and Brazillian Pumpkins ripe as I'd have liked. I wanted pickles though, so I put them together to make it worth the effort. They're both baccatums, both are aromatic and fairly mild, so I'm keen to see how it turns out 🌶️🌱

Two jars of mixed Peppadew (Malawi Piquante) and Brazillian pumpkin. The peppers have been halved, deseeded and soaked in saline before pickling. I normally follow ChilliChump's recipe for the pickled peppadews, but here I've used some leftover brine from making bread & butter pickles, which I boiled up again with some garlic and ginger. The peppers are both small, about an inch across, hemispherical and bright red, packed into 400ml (approx) jars and photographed on a wooden table in the garden.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 3w ago

Thought I'd better call in some of the harvest today. Still waiting for a lot to ripen, but the nights are getting cool and the days are getting short. Maybe it's going to be a green sauce kind of year 🤷 🌶️🌱

A few hundred chillies in a large wicker trug. Ignoring the mystery ones, there's Fruity Volcano, Peppadew, Shishito, Yatsufusa, Hungarian Black, Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry, Green Trinidad, El Oro de Ecuador, Brazilian Pumpkin, CP115, Poblano, Fatalii, Purple Pumpkin, Apricot Habanero and Hungarian Hot Wax.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 4w ago

I found a gem of a Fatalii when I rooted under the canopy. There are loads of these but they're green, late due to the summer heat. Hopefully if I move it to the greenhouse, there's warmth and time for more to ripen. 🌶️🌱

A large Fatalii chilli pepper, Capsicum chinense, deeply ridged and bright yellow against deep green foliage. The flowers that survived the heat were those buried amid the leaves, so unexposed to direct sun, this has ripened evenly from shoulder to tip, with the very end still green.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · last mo.

Mystery Chilli #4. A look at the Red Dragon website suggests it can only be Black Cayenne, but that seems to lack the dark pedicel. Most of the mystery seeds from this seller don't quite match with anything they sell, let alone the list of things they say they may be. All the more fun! ☺️ 🌶️🌱

A pair of long black chillies, on a plant with medium-dark foliage. 'Black' chillies are generally a very dark purple, and will usually ripen to red. While not uncommon, there are not so many in the long form (this is about 10cm long by 1.5cm wide). The slightly tortured shape and thick black pedicel make these fruits look particularly unusual.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · last mo.

Purple Pumpkin showing some impressive transitions. I've been surprised by the flavour too, not sure if it's because of the heat/sun/drought, but they're beyond what you might expect of an ornamental annuum. Only grew them for the colour, but now thinking of making a single variety relish🌶️🌱

Fruits on a Purple Pumpkin chilli plant. The two in the foreground are a mixture of shades between purple and peach, reaching up to orange on the most mature. Then there are a couple of younger purple ones, and almost hidden in the background is the bright red of a fully mature pod.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · last mo.

I'm pretty confident that the fermented, liquidized result of this fantastic rainbow medley will be a filthy sort of brown. But that's what I've got, as I pick off the early few* while waiting for the bulk to ripen. *Not actually early, I know, but it's been a funny year (see alt). 🌶️🌱

A lot of plants have been too hot and/or dry to set fruit, and didn't do much till I moved them out of the greenhouse and set up automatic watering. There's a lot going on now, but it's a race to get them to maturity before the weather closes in. There's also bright green jalapeno pods, from a plant which was doing great until it was snapped off near the base by a fox, and some Buena Mulata, unable to grow but valiantly trying to produce despite being girdled in it's youth by slugs. So this is a mix of the early pods from a bunch of plants, picked to stop them withering while I wait for the rest to ripen. Aside from those already mentioned, there's a mystery sweet mini-pepper (yellow), Green Trinidad, Shishito, Fruity Volcano, some chunky thing that was meant to be cayenne but grows to 3x the size, another mystery one that's similar but from elsewhere, Purple Pumpkin, Brazilian Pumpkin, Aji Limon and charred Hungarian Hot Wax.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · last mo.

Ever-dependable Hungarian Hot Wax. This lot went camping with me last week, to be grilled on the BBQ. Surprisingly they were too hot for general consumption, but they survived the trip and I griddled them this morning. Tempted to try fermenting them, post-charring, as I believe that's a thing. 🌶️🌱

A Hungarian Hot Wax pepper plant sits in a border against a wall. About 20 pale green peppers are visible, a few starting to blush orange as they ripen. A close up of the same plant a few days later. One of the peppers is bright red, but the rest remain pale green. I tend to pick them green, feeling they don't gain much in the ripening process. These are about 6 inches (15 cm) long, though a handful are even bigger18 Hungarian Hot Wax peppers lying in a row on a bare wood table. Perhaps because of heat stress, some of these were pretty hot considering how big they are. I grilled a few on the barbecue, and they made a great burger addition, but they were a bit too Russian roulette for eating on their own.The ones that came home again got griddled in a hot pan. I've been thinking about what to do with them, but I'm not sure they're going to survive this evening's Lebanese fakeaway.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is the thanks you get for lending Nature a helping hand. Slugs had ruined this Berbere Brown chilli plant by 'girdling' the trunk. But I really wanted seeds from it, so I thought I'd remove the damaged section and graft it back on. The fox cub had other ideas 😒 🌶️🌱

A Berbere Brown chilli plant, which had been 'girdled' by slugs stripping the bark, is carefully grafted back together after removing the damaged sectionA bag is placed over the top of the grafted plant, to reduce transpiration while the join healsThree days later the plant lies destroyed on the ground, soil strewn about, the bag chewed up and the stem snapped (not even at the join, but about 2 cm above)Here, I'm pretty sure, is the culprit - not THE fox, but one of her cubs.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is the ripe version of Mystery Pepper #3. It's hard to convey how the light catches it, the pearlescent sheen as purple pigments give way to orange and red. But this is my best attempt so far. 🌶️🌱

A metallic-looking, extremely gnarly chilli pod sits against a bleached plank of wood. Like a shot silk lining, the colour is a reddish orange, with undertones of purple.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Mystery Chilli #3 is starting to look like some kind of Borg invasion force. Should I be worried? I picked the first ripe one last night, a beautiful, metallic-sheened pepper, great aroma, technically waaaay-too-hot rather than super-hot. But there must be 70 pods on this thing: what am I to do?🌶️🌱🤯

An army of hot, gnarly, purple and green peppers are seen in a view through the centre of a dark-leaved chilli plant. There are lots of them, 30-40 in this shot alone - I haven't attempted a full count. When ripe, they turn orange-red, with shades of purple in places giving the impression of a metallic, pearlescent paint job, or shot silk.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Fruity Volcano has a real way with knobbles. I struggled to get a decent crop last year, but enough for a fermented sauce, which was both fruity and volcanic. Slow start this year, probably because of the heat, so I've moved it outside and picked these few, hoping to get a decent 2nd crop. 🌶️🌱

A glossy red chilli pepper drips down from an upward-pointing pedicel. These are pointed peppers, twice as long as they are wide, and have an almost brain-like texture, with broad, shiny bumps and folds defining the shape.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This Purple Pumpkin is absolutely bejazzled. Not sure what I'll do with the pods, I was only really growing it because we saw one in a service station close to South Devon Chillies, and my kid liked the look of it. The purple (unripe) pods have a surprisingly good green chilli note to them. 🌶️🌱

A chilli plant sits against a brick wall, the dark green foliage and dark purple pods making a great contrast with the ripe pods, which change through orange to a dark red colour.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Update on this Mystery Chilli (#3). It's relatively prolific for something as gnarly as this. My first guess was Yaki Blue, but that's smoother. They do sell a cross that looks right, Yaki Blue x Major Pain, but I can't find Major Pain as a variety either. 🌶️🌱

A number of chinense chillies ripening on an outdoor plant. They are conical, tapered to a sharp point, and knobbly as Hell. Their best feature, however, is the colour, a sublime mixture of green and purple. I think it's the prettiest chilli I've grown, although it's worth noting that they're all buried deep within the plant, and are barely visible at all without lifting the foliage.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

As a new heatwave looks set to strike, here's a reminder to take extra care to prevent fires 🔥 This was in our local park last week, and had there been any wind at all, it could have spread to engulfed the lot and taken property with it. Avoid BBQs, and don't smoke in a tinderbox.

A lone fireman sprays the perimeter of a grass fire in a London park. Without any wind, this was spreading slowly, but nevertheless surely. It took a long time for the fire service to get access to the site, and on a windy day it could easily have gotten out of control before they did.
Chilli Chirps@chillichirps.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A bit of veg from the garden, which went into a layered bake. The marrowiest courgette was too much, so I returned to the community garden and left it as an offering. It was gone 2 days later, so either somebody benefited, or the foxes are desperate. Varieties, where known, are in the alt. 🌶️🌱

A selection of colourful vegetables on an outdoors wooden table. The peppers are Cornel (sweet), Hungarian Hot Wax, Berbere Brown and Poblano. There's a blocky pale sweet pepper, variety unknown, gifted by a plot neighbour. Green Tigrella tomatoes are super tasty, though maybe better picked a few days earlier. There's another giant tomato from the neighbour. The courgettes are Clarion, an overgrown Atena Polka, and the giant green one is unknown, from a novelty pack of seeds (surprisingly good though, at least when picked at a sensible size)