Scotch Bonnet Chillis - Indoor Sowing and Growing Part 2: Baby Chillies!

The 2nd of a 3 part guide to growing Scotch Bonnets 'beyond the wall' in the frozen north that is Scotland

In part 1 I demonstrated how to circumvent the conning villains that haunt eBay and Amazon selling scotch bonnet or habanero chilli seeds for silly amounts of cash. We just grabbed the seeds from a regular store bought chilli (bonnet or habanero) and planted them instead. Now a little under four weeks later we go onto part 2!!

The beautiful babies!

Our seeds were planted in little pots sealed in a zippy bag.

Now some three to four weeks later you should have achieved germination!! Hopefully you have something that looks like below.

So now it is time to take those little seedlings out of their pots where they are lovingly growing together and rip their quiet lives apart by separating them into their own little pot homes

You will need

Your beautiful seedlings
A few pots
A fork
Some newspaper (not vital)
Some general soil or potting compost

Put your newspaper down and massage the sides of the pot that your seedlings are in. Then get the fork and gently, ever so gently prise the seedlings out from the compost and lay on the newspaper. Don't ever hold the seedlings by the stem, if you have to manhandle then do it by the leaves.

Get your soil or compost. Give it a good old two minutes in the microwave to kill blackfly eggs. Then fill up several pots with it until they are about two centimetres or an inch from the top. Dib or make a hole in each pot about an inch deep with your finger. Unbelievably you can buy a tool called a dibber for this but why the feck have we got fingers if not for this most holy reason?

Now choose the strongest of your seedlings to pot out of all of the little babies. This is your chance to feel powerful as in the title picture and show the seedlings your wrath!

You can plant as many of your seedlings as you like. I tend to stick to three or four as I will do another batch in January.

Give them all a right good watering

Now you can take them indoors and water every few days, more or less depending on if they are drying out. Try not to water if the soil is damp to the touch.

That's you!! The next and last post will be the care and maintenance of your plant as it goes through the equivalent of the tough teenage years. Hint fertilise weekly!

For now, just regularly water and watch in awe at mother nature!