#chilli peppers

This hot chilli peppers and olive oil sauce is ideal for adding heat and flavor to any dish. It's great as a dipping sauce or to drizzle over your favourite foods.

Instructions: Warm the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, with the chilli peppers, garlic, and salt. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool to room temperature. Blend the mixture in a blender until it is smooth. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to one month.

Plant of the Day

Tuesday 29 October 2024

In the shelter of this cool glasshouse the fruits of Capsicum baccatum var. pendulum 'Bishop's Crown' (chilli peppers) are still ripening. These fruit have a crisp texture, sweet flavour and only a mild pungency with a Scoville rating of 5,000–30,000, which is less heat than a jalapeño.

I love Chilli, and I've long wanted to grow some myself. Thus, after last year's success with my Bell Peppers, I collected fresh chilli (Capsicum annuum) seeds when cooking over the Winter, and, when I returned from Aotearoa New Zealand, I sowed the Cayenne Pepper seeds in a mixture of good garden soil and compost in a terracotta pot on 25th April. I kept the pot, in ‘The Nursery’ well-exposed to the sun, and watered regularly, oftener as the days became warmer.

By the early May, the seedlings were growing well, and a month after sowing them, I started thinning them, removing the smaller, weaker seedlings, to allow the others to grow sturdier.

Which they did, becoming taller, bigger, beautifully green and leafy! When they were just about to bloom, I prepared two large pots in the garden, which I filled with a mix of garden soil, vegetable potting soil and compost. I planted my four Chilli Plants in them on 28th June.

Soon enough, they were growing and flowering beautifully!

And mid-July, some of the flowers grew into tiny Chilli Peppers!

From then on, they grow quite quickly! All one has to do is to water them regularly (their soil should always be moist, but never soggy), every two weeks with a mixture of 1 cup Onion Skin Decoction and 4 cups Nettle Soup in a watering can, topped with about 8 litres of water. It both encourage growth and protects them from insects. Likewise, if slugs manage to crawl into your Bell Pepper pots (they are very fond of the leaves!), sprinkle Coffee Grounds generously at their feet; it shall deter them.

And then, one simply needs to admire their rapid growth, tending to them gently! (This, above, was in late July)

Until, they finally start blushing, and become redder and redder with each passing day!

I harvested my first Chilli Pepper in early September; three others soon followed! And, they are both tasty and very, very hot!

There are also heaps more growing on the plants, which are still flowering! We still have sunny and warm days, so I shall keep the plants outside as long as I can.