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Naga Chilli Relish – Best made outside!
After the garden apprentice discovering his favourite curry of all time, is made with Naga chillies. Guess what I’m now growing? Yes, Naga’s. Growing Naga Chillies I bought the seeds mid-season last year and had a bit of trouble with germination. I ordered two varieties, ‘Yellow Blaze’ which as the name suggests are yellow and a classic red ’Norfolk Naga’. I didn’t get any Norfolk Nagas to germinate at all and only managed one yellow blaze. It was slow to grow as chillies are but it got to reasonable size and I managed to keep it going through the winter. In the new year I ordered more seeds of the…
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Polly’s Simple, Mild Chilli Sauce
My chilli collection is split very definitely into two categories, mine and the garden apprentice’s. I’m afraid it’s rather stereotypical, I like the milder Jalapeño type chillies. Whilst he likes the silly hot chillies, along the lines of Habanero and Naga. As the big bulk of our chillies are harvested in the summer, we needed a way of preserving the fruits for winter. We used to simply chop the chillies up and pickle them, but there’re two problems with this method. Firstly as you eat food with chopped chillies, you can get some rather hot mouthfuls and some rather dull ones, it was too inconsistent. Secondly you don’t always want…
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Chilli Explosion
The greenhouse looks like a colourful chilli explosion, ranging from yellow, through orange to red. For years now I’ve only grown two varieties of chilli, Habareros and Jalapeño. Two years ago, I fancied a change and swapped my ‘Jalapeño’ for ‘Havana Gold’ a similar heat chilli. I can’t say I’ve been thrilled by them; they seem to go squidgy on the plant quite quickly. And they are the same colour as the hot Habanero, meaning they make the same-coloured sauce. Potentially a very dangerous situation! So, I will definitely be going back to Jalapeños next year. The garden apprentice has discovered his new favourite curry uses Naga chillies, so I…
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The Greenhouse – My Happy Place
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Super, Simple, Hot Habanero Chilli Sauce
This is actually the gardening apprentice’s hot chilli sauce; I only grow them for him. This year the habanero plants have done really well, but I guess the heatwave was always going to suit chillies. As usual we took the habanero plants into the house over winter, resulting in an early harvest back in July. The fruits were much smaller then, but just as hot! To preserve the chillies for use in the winter, we used to simply chop them up and pickle them, but there’re two problems with this method. Firstly, eating food with chopped chillies, results in some rather hot mouthfuls and some rather dull ones, it’s too…
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The Greenhouse – My Happy Place
What’s been happening in the greenhouse? Thanks to my reoccurring back problem, I’ve been spending more time than usual in the greenhouse recently. Gardening probably isn’t the best hobby for someone with a bad back, but I’m afraid I didn’t pick it, it picked me! Gardening is the one time that I feel completely relaxed. Time just vanishes, even doing small tasks like pricking out and potting on. As these are the main tasks at this time of year, it’s lucky they can be done sitting down! Chillies – Young and Old I sowed the chilli seeds back in January and they are still only two inches tall! They are…
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Chilli Explosion
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Time to bring the chillies in!
When we lived at our last house, we had no greenhouse, but we were desperate to grow chillies. We decided to have a go at growing them on the window sill. There was however a slight issue. The plants looked really healthy and were growing well, we just couldn’t understand why all these flowers weren’t producing fruit. Then it dawned on us, there were no insects in the house to pollinate them! We got one of my makeup brushes, and did a gentle dust on each flower. Eureka, fruit appeared! Keeping Chilli plants over winter All the guides talk about discarding the plants at the end of the season, and…
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Greenhouse – Take two
Garden transformation Part 10 – The Greenhouses We’d both longed for a greenhouse for years, we considered building a bespoke one to fit our tiny veg patch, but by then we’d pretty much decided to move. We moved in summer 2013 and set about turning our new garden into a kitchen garden. April 2014 – Greenhouse number one In spring 2014, we ordered our very first greenhouse. This was our joint birthday present that year, and put it together with great excitement. We had planned for the food growing area to be close to the house, so we would be able to clearly see the greenhouse. With this in mind we…
