Your comments and tips

15 Nov 08, mick (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Red Chilli fruits are spicy as they are mature, while green ones are not. Chillies will grow most anywhere, but a little extra TLC goes a long way.

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11 Dec 08, michael (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Hi, any suggestions for fertilising chilli plants to get the best crop?

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16 Dec 08, Simon (Australia - temperate climate)

Tammi - could be mice or rats, they can do this also. Its happened to me in Perth. Megan - Chillies will only grow vigourously during the warmer months, depending on where you are, they will either slow down, go dormant, or die altogether, depening on how cold it gets, a severe frowst will kill them. Wait until summer, they will flower all over, and give you lots of fruit. If you want a hotter chilli, water them less, let them dry out a little (but not all the way). A stressed plant will give hotter fruit. If you want hotter fruit still, get a different variety. Look for a chinense variety. Gareth - Most people raise chillies in punnets/starter pots, then into medium pots (10-15 cm across at the top), then onto final larger pots or garden beds when they have outgrown the medium one. You can tell when they are ready to be moved as they will have roots coming out the bottom. Julie - feed them with tomato food, probably in liquid form, is pretty good for flowering chillies, also, mulch and compost the soil if you can. Murray - depending on the variety, chillies can take up to 6 weeks to germinate, and they also need warm humid conditions to do so. Chillies are originally grown in warmer humid places, so they better you can recreate this, the happier they are. Keep them moist, (but not wet or soggy), perhaps put half a coke bottle over them to keep the humidity up, put them somewhere warm, they dont need sunlight to germinate, so the top of the fridge will do. When they do germinate, move them to a sunny windowsill or similar until they are ready to be hardened off to go outside. Michael - an NPK ratio of 10-5-10 for when they are growing works well, then 5-10-10 for flowering, if using bought fertilizers. Otherwise, a well composted mix of garden waste should work well, with some animal manure thrown in. Dont forget to mulch the soil to stop evaporation.

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01 Jan 09, jaime (Australia - temperate climate)

Hi! This is the first time we have grown jalapeno chillies and they are growing fine while they are green, but as soon as the colour starts to turn purple/red, the chilli is going soft, almost like they are rotting from the inside out. Can you give me any advise?? Thanks :)

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18 Feb 16, John Robertson (Australia - tropical climate)

Well, I'm not really in Australia; I'm in Thailand, but I was not allowed to put that in. Anyway, I have the exactly the same situation you describe. I cut open several and found some kind of grub or maggot inside. A couple of the peppers had small holes, but on many, I could find no holes or anyway these things could have gotten inside. I do not know what they are, but would like to find out what to do about them. It's pretty disappointing to have a nice crop going, then all of a sudden, they look like they are rotting form the inside and drop off. They are similar to the pepper maggot in the US. But as far as I know, those have never made it to this part of the world.

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14 Jan 09, Quinny (Australia - temperate climate)

Hello, I have a range of chillis in, - jalapenos, banana, birdseye. Some of the larger chillis have started getting brown spots, that spread, until the whole chilli goes brown and hard. It's not affecting all the chillis on the plant. I thought it could be blosssom end rot, but it is not actually starting on the blossom end, but rather somewhere around the middle or lower end. Any thoughts?

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18 Apr 12, Eliza (Australia - temperate climate)

Hi, I'm growing Birdseye and jalapeños at the moment. The Birdseye is doing well but the leaves on the jalapeño are turning yellow. The fruit continue to look healthy! I live in coastal south eastern Australia, but it hasn't been too cold yet. Any ideas?

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17 Jan 09, Elliot (Australia - temperate climate)

Jamie - 2 things it could be.Lack of water when the chillies are ripening, or a grub that gets layed in the young chillie and eats the inside of the chillie causing it to rot

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24 Jan 09, cy (Australia - temperate climate)

yah im growing chilis for the first time...how deep shoudl you plant them.

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18 Feb 09, John (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

Jaime. Open up one of the chili's, if is crawling with Grubs it is more than likely fruit fly. Make sure you put the spoiled fruit in a bucket of wate to kill the grubs. Then into the bin. Do not put int the compost, or the mulch at the botom of your plants. I'm still looking for a way to prevent the fly in the first place.

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