Sprouts!

These are my kind of sprouts at Christmas. Not those disgusting green balls of doom that haunt your dinner plate, no, I prefer these:

 

This is one of my Cherry Bomb seeds that I planted in the heated propagator, I only planted two of these so far, you can just see the other seed just poking out on the right hand side of the photo (the white blob!)

Two out of two germinated, only planted on 15/12 and the photo is a day old, so that's 6 days from planting to seedling, you can see now why I like Cherry Bomb so much!

Now just need all the other seeds to sprout, although I am not holding my breath for the bhut jolokia! :o)

Enjoy your Christmases!

Sowing seeds straight from chilli pods

I wondered whether chilli seeds needed drying out or leaving for a while before sowing, in order to ensure that they germinate properly.

So I tried sowing them straight from the pod.

The simple answer is no, they don't need drying out. Yes you can plant them straight from the pod immediately. I had excellent results with almost 100 percent germination rates in my trials.

I would hazard that you could cut a pod in half,  plant it,  and it would still germinate fine,  although I think it might rot and stink,  and of course it's better to space the seeds out in the usual fashion ;-)

I Beat Broad Mites Without Pesticide in One Step.

That's right. Broad mites can be eradicated on food crops in one single step safely and simply. Read on...

Broad mites are nasty little (and I do mean little!) bugs that infest indoor plants and seem to have a particular fondness for chillis

Let's be clear here. If you find yourself dealing with mites then your plants will suffer. Either by mite or by treatment,  yields will be down and plants may die.  Broad mites are very nasty.

Leaving plants untreated indoors is pretty much guarantee they will shrivel and die quickly. You have to act fast.

So - what to do? 

Heat treatment. The mites in all stages from egg to adult cannot tolerate heat. By "cannot tolerate" I mean it kills them.

Throw away badly affected plants, its best to concentrate on a small number of healthy plants.

Treat or throw away all plants at the same time. Treating just some plants at a time is pointless. You can't see broad mites easily and they will just walk back onto a treated plant from an untreated one.

It's very important to get the treatment right. Firstly because you will kill the plant if the temperature is too high.  Secondly if too low you may not kill all the mites. Both will be pretty disastrous so invest in a good thermometer that you can rely on, and get a stopwatch ready.

Bag up the pots well as you will be laying them on their sides, and prepare for a muddy mess.

Fill the bath and dunk the plants fully making sure every leaf is submerged for the full duration. Use anything you can to weigh them down.

Temperature: 43 Celsius
Time: 15 minutes

Once done, stand the plants up and rinse with tepid water.

You will expect all the leaves to shed within the next 24 hours and this may be depressing. But don't worry. New growth should start within a week and you'll be surprised to see how soon you get fruit back.

Please comment below on your results or broad mite experiences!

You can see my full post on my fight with the mites here