Hamper Blog alex.walker on 03 Aug 2010 12:49 pm
The Chilli Hamper – Growing Your Chillies (Part 5)
In the final part of this series, we’ll be looking at the flowers and fruit that will have appeared on your Chilli plant by now. A final big thank you to the team at The Chilli King who have offered their expertise on how to grow chilli plants.
As your pepper plants begin to mature you will start to notice flowers appearing on your plants. This is the sign you have been waiting for as it means that your first chillies are not that far off. All that stands between you and fresh chilli pods is pollination.
Pollination will be taken care of naturally by bees and other insects if your plants are kept outside. If grown inside your plants may suffer from flower drop, in which case you may want to consider hand pollination. Don’t worry, this is not as sordid as it may sound. All you need to do is wait until you have a few flowers on your plants then lightly rub your little finger inside the flower heads on your plants. Alternatively use a small artists paint brush or a cotton bud. This will do the bees job of moving pollen around from flower to flower.
Eventually you will see that some of the flowers will go brown and drop off. This is usually no need for alarm as the cause will be a chilli pushing its way through the flower. All you need to do now is to keep up the water/food and wait for your chillies to ripen.
