Chilli plants are one of the great givers.  A single plant can provide enough peppers for a year (unless you’re a real chilli head).  As well as being productive they can be very attractive and although they are often grown as tender annuals in the UK they are in fact perennials and can be over-wintered in frost free conditions.

This one is now just over 2 years old and has been brought indoors for the winter and looks sufficiently splendid that it will be incorporated into this year’s Christmas decorations.

Chilli 24 Nov 2015

Generally seed packets suggest that germination of chilli seeds requires extra heat (we generally use a small propagator), but this year we also noticed that quite a few plants had emerged from fallen fruit in one of the raised beds in the allotment.  We’ve potted up half a dozen of these and they are now being looked after on a windowsill to give us some specimen plants for next year.