OwnGrown

Digging is probably the worst job of the lot - starting late autumn and continuing through the winter to early spring as the ground is cleared. Rough dig the beds and leave the frosts to break the soil down. The problem this winter is that there are very few frosts so the soil does not break down and there is a lot of rain so the dug soil then compacts. After more work than usual, this picture shows the result at the end of March - a little has been planted / sown but most of the beds are empty and waiting for the warmer April weather before most of the sowing starts.

These have been very unsuccesful this year - late and very small. Started picking in early January and we shall end up with a very small total crop. Exactly why, I don’t know but I suspect a problem with whitefly on all the brassicas during the late summer and autumn was at least part of the reason. However, whitefly was also a problem the previous year and the crop last year was excellent.

Another year starts. You can see what happened last year by looking at all the posts under “Chillies” and the same applies to everything else if grown the previous year. All entries older than that are deleted. Two seeds have been sown in each of 24 Jiffy pots filled with seed compost. Two Chilli types, names unknown but one small and hot chilli and one large but less hot - both originated from Thailand and are from chillies grown last year. The plants will be thinned where necessary to one per pot. The number of plants needed depends on whether grown inside or outside, the summer weather and how many you use. Plants grown outside yield far fewer than those inside so I shall probably plant about 10 outside later in the year and this will be more than enough for a plentiful supply until the 2008 crop providing the summer is reasonably hot. If grown inside, three or four plants should be plenty but again it depends on how much you use and the types being grown.