Chilli Weather

It's the start of Winter here and despite being warm weather loving plants, our trusty chilli tree has just produced its fourth crop since Spring. We now have more than enough frozen chilli, dried chilli and chilli flakes (with and without seeds) to last us well into next Summer. The plant was grown from seed about 4 years ago, and is the result of my sister-in-law's decade long selective breeding program. They're enthusiastically orange, and to describe them as being spicy is like saying that a Rocketdyne F1 engine is good for warming things.

Chillis. Beautiful yet dangerous.

We had two crops during Summer, which were dried using a combination of sun (on 40˚C days) and oven drying. A few were also used to make chilli spray for spraying aphids with. The chilli spray was pretty serious stuff, I recommend full level A Hazmat Suit or at least some rubber gloves when spraying. And be careful which way the wind's blowing. And keep it away from ladybirds!