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02 Nov 08, Murray (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

After picking up some seeds at the garden show, I have added chilli to my seed trays in order to liven up the dinner plate this summer! Unfortunately, the chilli seeds are not striking. I must be doing things half right, as my lettuce, spinach, etc, are all shooting well. I have noticed my chilli packets are all Italian in variety..... Why wont they strike? What am I doing wrong?

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27 Oct 08, Mick (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Hi. I have my own chilli breeding program going on, and am planning to use a combination of Thai chilli, birdseye chilli, Chilli Diablo, some stock chilli (generic, little spice, huge fruit, and Habanero. All these plants are growing in a full-sun position in neutral soil with some compost and old manure mixed in, making it slightly more acidic, but they seem to love it. I have noticed growth of up to an inch a week if Worm Castings and seasol are mixed with some water and sprayed onto the leaves of the stock chilli and diablo. As the leaves of these two are very large, foliar feeding goes down a treat. The birdseye and thai chillies have smaller leaves, so I just add it into the irrigation water, with equal results. The habanero I have left alone, as a bit of an experiment to see how maintenance-free this part of the veg garden is. All the plants (apart from the diablo) were started from seed in the middle of winter, indoors, and the Thai chilli and Birdseye chillies have been topped as half the crop from them will go into our special family chilli sauce. All plants have abundant flowers, some of which are ready to open, and average about 60cm tall. I hope this helps and inspires some peopleto get into chillies.

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22 Oct 08, Julie (Australia - temperate climate)

My chilli plant was prolific with aprox 3cm sized fruit for the last few years. Now it has flowered again abundantly but the fruit are maturing tiny (0.5cm) and round. What is it lacking?

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13 Oct 08, Joel (Australia - temperate climate)

Megan, I have had the same problem with growing jalapenos, the plants make a lot of fruit, but they all stay very small and not spicy. I have found some other chili varieties grow better, birdseye chilli's especially. Someone suggested that the pH in my soil might be too high, I havent checked it though.

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03 Sep 08, Liz (New Zealand - temperate climate)

Julie, chillies will do better in full sun

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01 Sep 08, julie (Australia - tropical climate)

Do chilli's need full sun to grow or just morning? I am just getting ready to put in a vege patch.

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22 Aug 08, gareth (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

do u plant chillis from punnets or straight into the beds =) =(

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09 Aug 08, Megan Darling (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

I was just wondering, my chili's are very small and not very hot. Is there a way to encourage them to grow bigger? It's only 10 months old. Thanks

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21 Jun 08, Tammi (Australia - temperate climate)

Thank you so very much for the Slater advice. I will try the orange.

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12 May 08, Clair (Unknown climate)

Tammi - it might be slaters. Put a piece of orange near the plants at night, and check early the next morning. If it is slaters eating the chili plants, they will congregate on the orange, which you can then dispose of, with the slaters! Repeat until you are slater-free. If you don't have pets or kids, you can also crush up snail pellets to a powder as the slater's mouth parts or too small to eat the big pellets.

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