You don’t need a garden to grow food. If you have a sunny windowsill, or — better still — a porch or conservatory, you can raise a small range of produce. You may be only 1% self-sufficient, but what a halo of virtue and achievement that 1% will have.
My favourite indoor crop is chilli peppers — they grow far better inside than out, except in a sweltering summer. Our Irish weather is usually not sunny or warm enough to give the consistent heat needed for outdoor chillies. Fruits require high temperatures to develop: about 12C at night and 18C to 27C during the day.
Peppers are tender plants, originally from Central and South America; they were taken from there by European explorers and then onto Asian and African countries by colonists. There are thousands of chilli cultivars today that come from just five species of capsicum: C. annuum, C. baccatum, C. chinense, C. frutescens and C. pubescens.
Two of these are the subject of nomenclatural errors. C. annuum is not, as the name suggests, an annual plant. In common with the other members of the species, it is a tender perennial, but it is possible to keep the plants going from year to year indoors. C. chinense is not from China. Nikolaus von Jacquin, the Dutch physician who named it in 1776, saw it in the Caribbean, but thought it had come from China, and forever lumbered it with a misleading handle.
Let’s forget the nomenclature, though, and get down to the meat. For most of us, that means heat. There is the comforting warmth of the jalapeño, the searing burn of the habanero and a thousand other gradations of hotness, accompanied by fruity, citrussy or aromatic tones.
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In recent years extreme chilli fans have been transported to seventh heaven — or deepest hell, depending on your viewpoint — as scorchingly hot varieties have been developed. The current record holder is Smokin Ed’s Carolina Reaper, bred by Ed Currie of Rock Hill, in South Carolina. Chilli peppers have their own heat scale, Scoville heat units (SHU). The relatively tame jalapeno ranges between 2,500 to 8,000 units, while the Carolina Reaper peaks at 2.58m. This is 300 to 1,000 times hotter than the jalapeno, and about half the intensity of pepper spray. I cannot imagine ingesting a chilli with such a satanic rating, but plenty do — and you can see the unlovely results in YouTube videos.
Capsaicin is the principal compound in chillies that produces the “burn”. It also causes the release of natural opiate-like painkillers, endorphins. Pepper lovers build up a resistance to capsaicinoids and are able to consume increasingly ferocious varieties. If you’re a novice, don’t be tempted to test anything hotter than a habanero. Even that will blow your head off. If you are ambushed by a particularly venomous chilli, reach for milk or yoghurt and hold it in your mouth as long as possible. Olive oil will also do the trick. Capsaicin is not soluble in water, so most drinks will not cool the burn.
The hottest parts of the fruit are the placenta (the spongy, pale ribs) and the seeds, while the coolest is the apex (the lower tip). The same plant, however, can produce fruits of different strengths. This is caused by fluctuations in weather and in watering and feeding regimes.
Chillies have neat, ovate leaves, starry flowers and bright fruits. They are easy to grow, if you can give them enough light. Sow the seeds between mid February and early April in small trays of seed compost at a depth of 1cm and spaced 5 cm apart. Each plant will eventually inhabit a large pot (4 or 5 litres), so if your space is limited don’t sow more than a few seeds of each variety. Some varieties germinate within three days (C. annuum cultivars), while others (C. chinense cultivars) can take up to six weeks. The latter include the punishingly hot kinds such as Carolina Reaper, Trinidad Scorpion (1.4m SHUs) and Bhut Jolokia (1m SHUs). These require a longer growing season, so get them started early.
When the seedlings are 5cm tall and have formed their first set of true leaves, which appear after the thin, embryonic leaves, transplant them into small pots. Move them on again into larger pots when the roots show through the drainage hole. Indoor plants such as pepper and basil prefer to be rehomed every few weeks into slightly roomier pots instead of leaping from a tiny to a huge container.
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Chillies thrive in heat, so give them your sunniest window sill. They make beautiful pot plants, especially the smaller-fruited kinds, but you can also raise them in grow bags or in a bed in a greenhouse or polytunnel.
After the first fruits begin to form, give the plants a weekly boost with a potash-rich fertiliser, such as comfrey tea or tomato feed. Mature plants may need to be watered daily in warm weather. Misting with a spray bottle helps to prevent red spider mite. Watch out for gatherings of aphids at the soft growing tips and remove them by hand. If they are multiplying faster than you can handle, spray with an organic insecticidal soap.
Grow for it
Raise the temperature
The following have large selections of chilli pepper seeds:
chileseeds.co.uk (107 varieties),
nickys-nursery.co.uk (193 varieties),
seaspringseeds.co.uk (70 varieties),
simpsonsseeds.co.uk (77 varieties), southdevonchillifarm.co.uk (49 varieties).
Hot on the web
Based in America, thechileman.org is full of information for chilli heads. The Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University (cpi.nmsu.edu), is a non-profit organisation devoted to education and research. Over on chillisgalore.co.uk, you can access advice from a large chilli-growing community.
Jane digs...
The Garden and Landscape Designers Association conference, which takes place this year on February 11 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Santry, Dublin. Speakers include Welsh plant hunters Sue and Bleddyn Jones and Greek landscape architect Thomas Doxiadis Tickets cost from €50. glda.ie
