RE: [CH] Chile Growing...etc.

Frank J. Hashek (fhashek@comcast.net)
Wed, 2 Aug 2006 17:05:38 -0400 

Several years ago, I went to a seminar at the Fiery Foods Show where Nancy
Gerlach was discussing growing chiles.  She said that the plants should be
stressed if you wanted the most heat from the chiles.  Stressors included
hot weather, not watering if it didn't rain and even vigorously shaking the
plants a few times a day.  Nancy said that this would produce fewer, smaller
and hotter fruits.

I suppose that the heat is either concentrated due to the smaller fruit
and/or the plant's determination that the stress requires more heat to keep
ther herbivores from eating the limited quantity of fruit and hindering
propogation.

Any comments out there???

Blue skies,
Frank 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-chile-heads@globalgarden.com
[mailto:owner-chile-heads@globalgarden.com] On Behalf Of Linda Hutchinson
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 4:34 PM
To: Matt Evans; Chile Heads
Subject: Re: [CH] Chile Growing...etc.

My chilies are puny this year... maybe from the oppressive (to plants) heat?

I love heat but apparently they don't.  I have had good luck other years. 
Like Matt, my tomatoes are amazing!  Weird.

Linda

----- Original Message -----
From: Matt Evans
To: Chile Heads
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 3:46 PM
Subject: [CH] Chile Growing...etc.


Hi All --

To echo the (well-documented) sentiments of others, it's nice to see
some activity on the list....but, I'm ready for some actual
chile-related discussions --

My garden looks a bit funny this year.  It the first time in our new
house and we were afraid that the garden might have some "good" spots
and some "bad" spots, so we interspersed our chiles and tomatoes to
spread the risk around.  The tomatoes have done wonderfully, with
massive green plants and loads of delicious tomatoes.  The chile
plants, sadly, have lagged far behind.  They aren't necessarily small
and sickly and they are producing fruit, but they are not nearly as
beautiful as what I have grown in the past -- nor are they as pretty
as what I have in pots.

Are there significantly different soil/fertilizer requirements for
chiles and tomatoes?  I haven't found this to be the case in the past,
but I don't know for a fact.

I've got one red, one yellow, and one orange Peter Pepper plant, each
in its own pot that were planted late.  They are coming along slowly,
but the red and yellow have started setting flowers.  Am I the only
one who loves these chiles?  I'm not talking about their "interesting"
shape, but I just really like the heat level and taste of these
chiles.  I think that the seed lines for the yellow and orange ones
might go back to Hobby Farmer.  I'm not sure about the reds.

More to come later -- an update on my very strange manzano plant.

Matt