Last year we swapped a comfrey plant and got in exchange some chilli peppers, one being the apache variety (above). Last autumn we remembered what our friend DJPhil Harmony from Berlin once said, that chillies are perenials as in they’ll keep going if they’re kept out of the frost/winter.
And below is the plant this year that’s kept on the kitchen windowsill. Do bring them in over the winter, they won’t look they are doing much but they’ll reward you again and again! Look at the amount of chillies we have on it and warning, apache is a hot one!
A few years ago our friend from Berlin Phil Harmony told us a fact that we didn’t know. He said that chillies and other peppers are perennials, that is the plants will last a few years if they’re kept out of the cold and frost. The plant comes from the tropics where there is no such thing as winter or if there is, their winters are nowhere as bad as ours.
Last year we did a swap of a comfrey plant and got a couple of pepper plants in return (here). One was an Apache Pepper (main picture) that we grew on the kitchen windowsill and a Pot Yellow (above and below) that went outside but sadly didn’t bring in over winter so it’s now gone to the big greenhouse in the sky. Both peppers were easy to grow and gave us some crazy hot chillies that were put to good use here. Pot Yellow grows into a nice plant as well and gives you a fair few hot fruits too.
The Apache pepper was kept indoors on the kitchen windowsill and is still with us now, has just flowered and the first fruits are starting to appear (main pic at the top). The only thing we did with the plant over the winter months was cut down on the watering and just watered it when the compost looked like it was drying out. More on overwintering chillies and peppers here.
And talking of Phil Harmony here’s a great free dub download from a few years ago called Dubnight Compilation Vol.3. compiled by Phil Harmony& Moshi Kamachi here. Download and dub out!
A big thanks to our good gardening mate Gerry Hectic for sending us pictures of the story so far in his garden. Loving the runner beans in the pot with a trolley from Aldi at the bottom so it can be moved around to catch the maximum of sunlight. Our other good friend Phil Harmony in Berlin used to also use that idea on his balcony for his veg growing. As The Merton Parkas used to sing “You need wheels”.
The peas and tomatoes look great too! Just water them daily and add a weekly feed, all will hopefully be grand! More pics of your progress in a few weeks please Gerry!
Cheers to our good mate in Germany Phil Harmony for sending us these two pictures this morning of a suprise he got when he cut a tomato this morning for breakfast. We only found out through the magic of the internet that this is called Vivipary and “occurs in overripe fruit when seeds have reached maturity and the natural hormone, abscisic acid (ABA), is reduced.” Well you learn something new every day!
And also a pic from a while ago of what he found in his kitchen sink after coming back from a ten day holiday. Big up the guerilla pepper!
And cheers to another gardening/music friend of ours Dr Strangedub for playing Jazz’min & Madtone’s LP Livicate on the 2nd March’s Echo Chamber on KFAI(which is a show well worth tuning into every week!) and for playing One Deck Pete’s “Give a little whistle” mix (featuring tracks by Joakim, Marcel, Roscoe Wethers and Felix Laband) on the show to at 71.35 mins in. Big shout to Dr Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss! Click here for the archive of recent shows.
A big thanks goes out to DJ Phil Harmony in Berlin for playing (and for the kind words too) a couple of tracks off Jazzmin & Madtone’s “This Frequency E.P” on his excellent Dubnight Radioshow on Radio Blau. Another gardener of the dub variety (a few interesting past posts from Phil are here and here) he’s sent us some recent gardening pics of his pots on his balcony where there’s limited sunlight.
The first is of the herbLovage. As Phil told us “I was very surprised when I cleaned my pots as I found the root in the soil with little sprouts so I let it sit and a few weeks later it came back to life! I love this herb for potato or other soups. We also call it Maggi herb”. Looks good, we’ve heard of it here before but never used it, perhaps we should!
And some spuds he started off this year, and they’re looking grand! He only had a smallish harvest last year (below) but as Phil says “the taste you get from your own harvest is not like anything you can buy, not even in the organic shops! Even if you only grow just one tomato it’s not comparable with anything from the supermarket!” and he’s right! Good luck with the spuds Phil! Keep sending us those pics.
Weeds up to me knees 