Chilli cultivation for beginners

Chilli plants can be grown with surprisingly little effort. Check out your local vegetable seed retailer. They usually have a few varieties of chilli seeds. Then there are some online retailers who specialise in selling chillies and chilli seeds. One of these traders is ourselves Chili-Plants.com seed shop.

You can get fresh seeds from purchased chillies, peppers and peppers. For the most part, these germinate more reliably and faster. Unfortunately, however, they are rarely pure. The result of the next generation is not stable.

If it is above 20 °C in your house, you can plant the seeds straight away in growing soil. Growing soil is not fertilised, which is better for germination at first. In spring, many retailers and discounters offer propagation kits. These consist of a windowsill greenhouse and coco tablets.

The advantage is that spring pots can take chilli seeds shortly after watering. In the small greenhouse, the humidity is retained better and ideal germination temperatures of 22 °C - 26 °C are possible.

If you want to grow chillies already in winter, a heating mat is a good idea. If you have only acquired a taste for them in summer, it is certainly warm enough.

For beginners, varieties of Capsicum annuum are best suited. These usually do not take so long to bear fruit and do not have high demands on temperature and humidity.

Haben Sie sich zum Beispiel zu einer Jalapeño oder einem F1 Hybriden entschieden, lassen Sie getrocknete Samen über Nacht im abgekochten Wasser einweichen. Am nächsten Tag stecken Sie die Samen etwa einen halben Zentimeter tief in Quelltöpfe und bedecken sie mit Erde.

With seeds from fresh and ripe chillies, you save the step of soaking. It is only important that the chilli seed has fully developed. Therefore, do not take chilli seeds from green pods. Red, yellow and orange chillies are actually always ripe enough.

Between one or two weeks, your seedlings will stretch tender cotyledons upwards. A particularly touching moment for beginners and professionals alike.

Allow the seedlings to grow in the greenhouse for about two more weeks before transplanting them, together with the source pot, into a larger flower pot.

The best soil to use is tomato soil. Tomatoes and peppers both belong to the nightshade family and share the same requirements for soil and fertiliser. A common beginner's mistake is watering incorrectly. Chillies do not like waterlogging. It is best to read on here later about how to water chillies properly.

Let the chilli grow in a south-facing window until mid-May. Then slowly get used to wind and sun. After a week, it will finally go into the garden or on the balcony.

Chillies like sun and warmth. Chilli plants die in frost. Therefore, do not put the chillies out too early. If you have planted the plants in a container, listen to the weather forecast. If night temperatures of below 8 °C are forecast, it is better to bring the plants back indoors.

Depending on the variety, it takes three months for flowers to form. Wind and bees certainly take over the fertilisation, so that green chilli pods develop. It usually takes 2 - 3 months until green pods turn yellow, orange or red to mature.

If you have started cultivating late in the year, bring the chillies indoors in autumn. If the chillies are placed under artificial light, you can continue to grow them indoors.

Questions?

This guide is just to give you a small overview of how easy chilli growing can be. Just try it out. This hobby has already taken over many people. After all, these are not flowers you are growing, but really hot useful plants.

On the Chili-Plants.com website, you are sure to find answers to many exciting chilli questions.