How to grow chillies in UK
Have you ever tried growing chillies before? You can have great success from growing chillies here in the UK. All you need is is some warmth either in a greenhouse, polytunnel or a conservatory and you could have some great success and a fantastic harvest from your chilli plants. Here you will find out how to grow chillies in UK
There are many varieties of chillies that can be grown in the UK. You can get the very mild ones right through to the boiling hot ones that you may struggle to eat depending how good you are with spicy food.
Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book
Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-
You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.
Purchase Chilli seeds
Are you looking at growing chilli plants at home in the garden or the Allotment? If the answer is yes you will need to buy some chilli seeds. You can either use a chilli that you have bought from the shop and dry the seeds out or you can purchase your own. Below is a link to Amazon where you can purchase your own seeds.
When to Sow, Plant and Harvest your Chillies
Knowing the right time for sowing your seeds, planting your chillies and harvesting your produce is vital so that you get the best crops from your produce. Here we provide you with dates for you chillies in the UK
| Sow | February to April |
| Plant | June |
| Harvest | July to October |
Please remember these dates all depend on the weather in the UK and the temperature.
How to Sow Chilli Seeds
Chillis are bes started off indoors at the end of winter as they will need lots of warmth to help them germinate. Plus starting them off early gives them longer time to produce great crops.
To sow your chilli seeds fill a seed tray with good quality compost then sprinkle the seeds on top of the surface evenly. They will probably all germinate so only sow what you need to. Cover the seeds with a fine layer of compost. Water the compost and cover the seed tray with a propagator or use cling film. This will keep the compost warm and it will keep it moist which will save you from watering it.
Place your seed tray somewhere warm that has plenty of sunlight – on a windowsill would be a good spot. When the seeds start to germiante you can remove the propagator or the cling film.
How to plant out your chilli plants
When your chilli seeds have germinated and have grown to around 3cm you can now pot them up into individual plant pots. Plant them in small plant pots with standard compost.
When you can see the roots popping through the bottom of the plant pot you can transplant them to there final plant pots. You can either plant them in flower buckets with holes in or you could grow them in grow bags.
How to look after your chilli plants
As the chilli plants start to grow bigger you can stake them up with a garden cane to support them as they are growing so they don’t topple over and snap.
When the plants are around 25cm tall you can pinch the tops of the plants to encourage branches to grow on the chilli plants which will get more fruit on them.
To make sure that you get great crops on the chilli plants they will require watering regually every day to every other day.
When the flowers start to appear on the plant they will require feeding once every fortnight. You can use general tomato feed.
How to Harvest Chillies
This is the moment you have been waiting for harvesting your produce which has been growing for around 6 months. The more you pick them the more chillies will grow on the plant. If you are leaving them to ripen red they will not produce as many chillies on the plant.
Now you know how to grow chillies in UK. Do you want to know if the pepper is a fruit or a vegetable? Find out here.