How To Grow Your Own Chillies

I've loved spicy food all my adult life, and came across chilies regularly in Indian restaurants and curry houses. But it was much later on that I started to cook with them myself.

The first time I cooked using real chilies was a chili con carne, when I was still a student. Upto that point, I only used chili powder - and a vicious brew called Encona West Indian chili sauce. So you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered there was no 'kick' at all when I used the real thing!

It's all in the seeds & white inner flesh
So, where the heck was the satisfying chili kick that I was after? Well, I followed the advice of a host of TV cookery programmes and cookbooks, and laboriously removed all the seeds, by cutting away the entire interior of the chilies, including the white fleshy membrane - and that's where all the heat is!

These days, I still remove the seeds most of the time, when cooking with chili, but deliberately leave some of the membrane attached. It depends how spicy I want my cooking to be also!

Chilies are so tongue-sizzlingly hot because they contain a naturally-occurring chemical called capsaicin - pronounced 'cap-say-a-sin'. In fact, it is the white inner membranes and seed-containing parts that contain the highest concentrations of capsaicin.

The seeds themselves - contrary to popular belief - do not contain any. In cookery, de-seeding takes away a lot of the heat simply because the membrane is also removed.

Once ingested, capsaicin binds pain receptors in the mouth. These receptors are normally responsible for sensing heat, and so a signal is sent to the brain that something hot has been eaten.

The brain responds by releasing endorphins, increasing heart-rate and by triggering perspiration.

Measurement of relative 'hotness' of chilies is in Scoville units (SHU) where bell peppers measure 0 and capsaicin itself measures 16 million.

How Hot is Your Chile? Art Print
Miller, Mark
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Well Would You Believe It?

Birds are immune to the effects of capsaicin in chilies. They can enjoy the fruits, and help to disperse the seeds, which are unaffected by the birds' digestive systems.

Mammals' digestive systems destroy the ability of the seeds to germinate, and so the burning capsaicin appears to be an evolutionary defence employed by the chili!

I always thought it would be impossible to grow chilies where I am in the UK. 'They need to be grown in very hot countries,' I thought. 'Or in a greenhouse, where everything is strictly controlled.'

Luckily, I found out about a few farms in England that specialize in growing chilies, so I decided to give it a go myself.

There's such a sense of satisfaction in growing your own food, whether it is vegetables in the garden, or herbs on your kitchen window ledge, or chilies in a sunny spot. I grow all mine indoors in pots. And it is extremely easy to do.

These days you can buy starter kits that contain everything you'll need to get your chili-growing exploits started. These kits range from the quite 'hi-tec' to simpler starter packs.

I've always simply bought a packet of seeds and some potting compost, and got started in small 3 inch pots, or peat pots.

I have grown chilies from seed using both peat pots and 24 cell seed growing trays. Both are equally good in my experience.

Okay, so how do you grow them? Very simple really. Fill your peat pot or tray cell to about three quarters full with potting compost - I use multi-purpose compost with John Innes. Put a seed onto the surface in the center of the pot and cover with 1/4 inch of sieved compost. Then water gently and leave in a warm shady spot. I find it best to use a propagator at this point. You can buy seed tray kits which have a transparent plastic lid, for use as a propagator. These are ideal.

After a couple of weeks - keep the soil moist - the seeds should have germinated and sprouted through the surface. At this point, you can move them to a warm sunny window ledge. Keep the fledgling plants watered, but take care not to overwater them.

Once your baby chili plants have several pairs of leaves, it's time to pot them on - to transplant them into bigger pots.

So fill the new pots (5 or 6 inch diameter) with compost and gently water to moisten the compost before planting. Gently remove the young plants from their small pots or cells - do not pull them by the stems, and keep some of the soil to protect the roots.

Dig a hole in the new compost and plant the young chilies pressing firmly around the stems. Then gently water again, and that's all there is to it!

Well Would You Believe It?

It was recently discovered that tarantula venom, although chemically different from capsaicin, activates the same pain response pathway in mammals. This is the first time that such a shared pathway has been demonstrated in both plants and animals in defence against mammals.