In particular, Rocoto. Sometimes also sold as Alberto’s Locoto.
I first encountered this chilli pepper last year, and bought it only because the fruit was not standard chilli shape. In addition, it will also grow outside on a warm patio, and it can be overwintered, in the same way as a fuschia for example.
Overwintering gives the plant a head start, producing fruit faster and more of them.
The leaves are unlike the other chillis I grow as well. In fact they look more like a tomato, or deadly nightshade. They are large and hairy, and the flowers are small and purple.
The fruits are shaped like small bell peppers rather than the traditional and expected witches fingers or cones. They turn green to red as the mature, gradually bringing the branches down with their weight.
The unusual shaped Rocoto chilli
Rocoto chillis are easy to grow
This year the seed sown was from last years fruit, taken just before Christmas when my daughter used a couple to make chilli chocolate for her friends. I sowed the first of them barely dried out on New years Day. There was 100% germination in heated propagators through the mild January and occasionally frosty February.
Rotoco chilli seedlings sown on January 22nd
Last week I moved the first ones on into individual pots. I want to pot these on quickly as they grow to maximise the outdoor season they will get in one of my suntraps.
Rocoto chillis potted on in week 8
The original seeds were from Realseeds, a most helpful and friendly lot with loads of interesting seeds to choose from. The website of the Chileman shows many varieties called Rocoto, with different colours of fruit and degrees of heat.
Mine are very much on the hotter end of tolerable.
And earlier this week I sowed 3 other varieties, some for the greenhouse but another that should grow outdoors. they should be ready to move on by mid-April.
Mulching This week in the garden week 8
After a dry period, maybe the longest since early in the year, I have been able to take care of some more tidying and mulching.
That has involved taking back the old stems and withered foliage that had been attractive with a little winter frost. Now the frost has gone it just looks plain untidy without it.
Borders with a little mulch to protect against any sharp frost
But it did provide some protection to crowns and emerging shoots when the occasional frost did arrive. Now that untidy protection has gone, a good mulch of home brewed compost is needed to protect for a few weeks. This will be worked into the ground by bugs and worms.
In the 3 years since my annual compost production was sufficient, the improvement in flower borders and raised beds has been fantastic. But the underlying silty clay needs to be constantly managed. So a good load each spring and prior to any new planting keeps it in check.
Home grown compost for mulching
The volume required makes having your own compost supply essential. My 8 square meters plus leaf mould bins just about copes with the demand. To buy that in would cost a fortune. getting manure from a local farm delivered starts at about £50. The garden economics I use makes that £45 too much.
The material cleared from the flower borders has formed a new woody layer in the compost heap. Just as well as I have only about 1 cubic meter of compost ready. I have mown the grass once since New Years Day, but there is not enough real growth in it to provide the soft material needed for the next layer. A layer of partially rotted leaves will do instead for now.
Next week is pruning week, with roses, dogwoods and a small tree to attend to. What does not get used for cuttings will be shredded for yet another layer in the compost bin.
This week in the garden week 7
After a week away for some winter sport and I have come back to – not much change in the garden. Or that is perhaps how it looks at first. A deeper look reveals cyclamen flowering well, primula and polyanthus colour dotted all over the beds, crocus in various stages of life and colours and daffodils not flowering.
Yes, not flowering. At one stage I had suspected that they would all be done and over by the end of January but the irregular cold checks have worked perfectly to delay them. In fact I don’t recall some of the varieties I have being this late in the years in this house.
Good news.
But the early growth in perennials has been checked back again, this week quite severely. Notably Crocosmia and Nerines, but also Osteospermum. This time they may take a while to recover, but in turn means that the first rush of colour in the borders will be pushed back, perhaps smoothing over a gap period I have in mid May.
In the greenhouse everything is rosy. Or perhaps beany. Broad beans and peas are growing well in the vacant greenhouse borders and in pots. This year I have not applied any water to them, leaving them to fight for whatever they can scrounge from the sopping earth outside.
And I have sown some runner beans too using the same principle, setting pots on damp earth in one corner and leaving them to it.
Keep an eye on Dahlia tubers
I have been checking the Dahlia tubers that are stored in there too, opening the crates and leaving them on the bench as much as possible to ensure no dampness gets in. I lost over 50 per cent of my stock last year to damp.
Dahlia tubers drying out in storage
In the other greenhouse seeds are sprouting everywhere. Many are perennials that I will use to fill borders while other plants bulk up to split in the spring. These were sown on January 1st and are being pricked out and potted on already. Some are tough annuals like Calendula and French Marigold; I want to use as companion planting in the vegetable beds.
Another highlight this week in the garden were the chillies. Some regular, some small and brightly coloured and some for flavour. The Rotocos hit 350,000 on the Scoville scale; you don’t want to be taking a bite out of them. These are now pricked out into their first pots. I will keep the heat on them for a while to get them ready to plant out in May, some in pots and some just outside the greenhouse.
Cuttings taken in early January are also fully rooted and now being potted on, providing more plants for the first Abbotsbrook plant swap late in April or early May.
Another couple of frosty nights are forecast, so I have covered up a few things and tucked others into a cold frame.
This week in the garden Week 5
A wet and blowy weekend let to a brighter week, but the frost of Wednesday night will undoubtedly have done some damage.
This week in the garden I have cut back the Miscanthus in the west facing front garden, mainly because the leaves were being blown everywhere and the seed heads had been stripped. New green shoots were showing on this, but not yet on the Calamagrostis.
As a matter of choice I prefer to cut back without removing the new shoots, but it should not matter. Some major grass displays are cut back unceremoniously with a hedge trimmer regardless of what stage growth is. It is grass after all, and it grows like.. well, grass.
Miscanthus trimmed back ready for new growth
I have also moved some plants that are in a north aspect, removing about fifteen Phormium Tenax fans, leaving “just” the other fifteen in place. After trimming back the fans so they can be planted without fear of falling or being blown over, I have donated them to neighbours. These architectural plants make great anchors to plant around as the are hardy and evergreen.
This area gets little sun below the fence line outside of Late May to August, and the soil remains cold and damp most of the time. I have some Cornus varieties close by, their winter coloured stems hopefully lifting the gloom. Behind them and under the tree I have planted about fifteeen Vinca Major Variegata, the large and robust variegated Periwinkle. It grows in light deprived areas, and the largely off-white leaf lifts the background.
Vinca lifts the low light areas
I used this plant in another north facing area last year, but this time under a Holly tree, again with the idea that it might lift light levels and encourage a second look at the other plants in that area.
The frost will set back those early starters again, but also temper the progress of the daffs that had threatened to be over by the end of February.
In the greenhouse broad beans are now showing well, and to my surprise so are the peas. Peas just would not grow for the last two years, and this really was last chance saloon for them.
Purely as a bye-the-way test I put some seeds in to the empty greenhouse borders. These beds are quite dry – I have added no water at all after an initial dampening – and it has worked.
I now want to sow some sweet peas to get them moving and ready to plant out in May.
This week in the garden Week 4
In between showers and work I have taken care of a few chores. Cutting back some leggy herbs, Sage and Fennel in particular.
This mild period is ideal for taking the tired stems back. Without frosts to enhance the dead stems it quickly starts to look untidy. One or two of the stems are also broken, the result of the high winds we had.
I try not to cut them too far though, just in case of further frost that is more than the light dustings we have seen so far this winter.
Next week the beds will be mulched with compost that has been rotting down for a year or so. This covering will provide a little more protection for crowns and and newly emerging shoots lulled into a false sense of spring.
Sage, Fennel and Mint in need of some TLC
Sage can become woody after a while, and winter is a good time to rejuvenate it. The standard pruning rules apply here: take back any damaged, crossing and unruly stems. But don’t take them back too far, as the pant may well sulk for months otherwise. I left a couple of stems to be tucked under a rock to grow on as layered cuttings. This should room over the spring and early summer and be ready to move by autumn.
Sage and Fennel cleared, and Sage layers held down under a rock
Sage is plant that should be in sun and heat. I have taken cuttings – in midsummer -and planted some on the edge of gravel paths so that they get the sun, and the stored heat of the stone. They are also regularly brushed as I or the dog walk by, releasing the pungent aroma. He smells much nicer for it!
These sunny spots are premium real estate for gardeners, but Sage is probably a worthy resident.
I also trimmed the mints, and removed some of the prolific runners they send out. Some can be potted on to replace ageing plants or to give away.
Last to go was the Santolina, which I treat in the same way as Sage. Mine are just three years old, and this is the first major trim. This summer will be the time to take cuttings with a plan to try using some as foliar borders around the raised beds.
Santolina
This week in the garden I have also seen the first broad beans showing both in pots and in the greenhouse borders. This is a new area for me, never having grown anything but chillies, tomatoes and cucumbers under glass. I had also sown some peas in the other border bed, where the soil is deeply cultivated by remains drier – only the moisture from the ground up getting through.
So fingers crossed there will be some early bean crops in the greenhouse and some ready to go out as the ground warms up outside.
Making a compost bin – from the ground up. Making a compost bin must be the first consideration in any garden. It will provide a place to lose all the natural waste generated. And no matter how much it is neglected, that will turn into good useful compost or soil conditioner.
The product of the compost heap is where I start my thinking. I need mulches for beds of perennials, which protects and nourishes as well as conditions the soil. I also need soil conditioner for vegetable beds and for any new flower beds. And I need the finer components to bulk out other composts when potting on seedlings or divided perennials.
So if there was no compost heap, I would be facing a hefty bill from the garden centre.
Home made compost limitations
Compost from the heap is not a complete replacement for purchased compost. You still need that assured standard throughout the year. My personal favourite is B&Q’s own brand Verve, which I tried after reading it was rated number one by Which? magazine. I have not since had cause to try anything else.
But making a compost bin and the implied management of it can put people off. It will take space, and it will take time to “turn”, as we are continually told in the garden media.
But I think there is a way that is relatively simple to manage – including the required “turning”. And it takes a fraction of the time that a standard compost bin might.
I have tried this in the smaller of my two bins, and it really works.
Rather than having a set amount of space and filling it all with garden waste, you have a longer and thinner enclosure. This is two to three metres long, by up to a metre wide, depending on the space available and the amount of material likely to be added. Making a compost bin using easily available wooden pallets is easy. One at the closed end, and two or three along each side secured together with some of that surplus timber that every household seems to have.
Pallets: perfect for making a compost bin
Using the 1.2 metre “europallets” gives a good length but not the height, so are easier to lean over to manage. Pallets used to deliver paper to printers are also OK.
Filling starts at the closed end and after a month is “rolled” into the middle section. Meanwhile any new material is added at the first stage. One month later the process is repeated, with the contents of the middle section rolling to the open end. Then move section one to the middle, leaving an open space at section one to start filling again.
Some points to remember that may not be obvious.
Leave the bottom open to allow worms and insects in.
If under a canopy or in shade, leave the top open, but if in full sun or exposed form some sort of cover, something like carpet. there are times to cover, and times not to. This extract from Gardenweb sums up the conflict. If the weather forecast is calling for 25 millimetres (or more) of rain and your pile already had adequate moisture, throwing a piece of plastic over it for the weather event will do little, if any, harm and will likely save some grief in the long run.If the pile had adequate moisture to begin with, throwing a tarp over it will not add more moisture and make the pile too wet, this is not logical. In extremely dry or windy weather, throwing a tarp over it may conserve what moisture it had. If the pile is made up of very dry leaves, covering the pile with a tarp for a few days seems to help those leaves absorb the moisture, through the high humidity. But a tarp thrown over a pile isn’t a ziploc bag, so water may be needed. There are numerous reasons why one might want to cover a pile, as there are numerous reasons why one might not want to cover a pile.
When adding to the compost pile try to mix the addition by the composition, some nitrogen based, some carbon based etc.
The “what to compost” section at eartheasy.com has a great table explaining the various components.
Like this, but longer, open one end, closed at the other
Keep it balanced for good compost
That may then imply that some materials wait for a while before being added, either next to the compost bin, or if there is just too much put it in your green garden waste recycling bin.
To the obvious question “do I use this myself?” The answer is no. I inherited compost heaps in a particular place, and had no need or desire to move them. But I did clean them up and make a two bin arrangement that takes just an hour or so each month to turn. I move new usable compost into tonne bags, rolling the next section forward and filling up from an adjacent bin. But I enjoy the workout!
Making a compost bin will be part of a garden workshop later in the year, as will what to do with all those leaves in autumn.
