How to identify your chilli plant species

If you are given a chilli plant of misplace a plant marker, this guide should help identify the species:
Pubescens (e.g.Rocoto)

• - Seeds Black

Annuum (e.g. Jalapeno)

• - Seeds tan colour
• - Corolla White (no spots)
• - Flowers solitary per node and filament NOT purple

Baccatum (e.g. Aji)

• - Seeds tan colour
• - Corolla has spots

Chinense (e.g. Habanero)

• - Seeds tan colour
• - Corolla white or greenish, no spots
• - Flowers two or more per node and filament purple

Frutescens (e.g. Tabasco)

• - Seeds tan colour
• - Corolla greenish, no spots
• - Flowers solitary per node

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January at the chilli Farm

A new year and we’re nearly done with clearing out the polytunnels all the 2009 plants are now in a big compost stack.  Since we don’t plant the tunnels again until mid to late April, we won’t start sowing seed for a few weeks yet.

We have more new chillies to try this year (see the new offerings on the seeds page) including a wider range of ornamental chillies. We also hope to grow a lot more Bhut Jolokia this year so we can expand the ‘Extreme’ range of products.

We are looking to build a second building this year to be a dedicated farm shop and chilli-café, so that will take most of our spare time. The plan is to open it before the summer school holidays - I’ll post some pictures when we get going.

Lots of snow here and there today (12th Jan 2010), but the weather man said South West winds return to the area for the first time since before Christmas, so that should make doing business a bit easier.

During January we usually spend some time thinking of new products to add to the range, so if you have any must-haves, please drop us a note.  So far, we are looking to extend the range of chilli-growing kit this year, and will be adding a lot more information to the web page on recipes - particularly, more suggestion on using dried chillies.

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