Fruit vegetables
Chilli
Capsicum annuum
Timings for your region
Suggested: Moderate · Explained in the glossary
Start indoorsearly February – mid March
Plantingmid May – early June
Harvestearly August – mid October
Practical tip
The hotter varieties need a long season — sow in February and keep them potted, so the plant can move indoors in September.
Origin & history
Chillies were domesticated in Central and South America — five separate species, independently of one another; they reached Europe with Columbus. From there Portuguese trading ships carried them to India, Southeast Asia and Africa within a few decades — the hot Indian and Thai cooking we know is younger than those voyages. Heat has been given in Scoville units since 1912, named after the American Wilbur Scoville.
Varieties
Outdoors the reliable ones are varieties of Capsicum annuum — jalapeño, cayenne, Hungarian wax — they finish ripening within our season. Habanero and Scotch Bonnet belong to Capsicum chinense, germinate more slowly and need a far longer, warmer season than an open bed in Germany provides; they belong in a greenhouse or a pot. The Scoville figure on the packet is a range, not a promise: a hot, dry summer pushes the same variety noticeably further up.
Care
A pot of about five litres is enough for most varieties — more volume means more root and more crop, but also more weight when you move it. Break out the first flower in the first fork, the so-called king flower; the plant branches more strongly afterwards and carries more overall. Do not feed too heavily on nitrogen or you get a magnificent green plant with very little fruit. To overwinter, cut back in autumn to a short framework of branches, keep the plant bright at 10 to 15 °C and water only sparingly.
What can go wrong
The classic failure starts as early as February: in room warmth and poor light the seedlings run up into long, pale stems that never make sturdy plants. The brightest spot in the house or a grow light, slightly cooler at around 18 °C after germination, and pricking out into individual pots in good time all solve it. In winter quarters spider mites and aphids settle in the dry air from the heating — check the undersides of the leaves weekly, keep the plant cool and the air not bone dry, and rinse off what is affected. Flower drop on cold nights below about 12 °C is normal and stops once it warms up.
Harvest, storage & kitchen
The heat does not sit in the seeds but in the white partitions they hang from — take those out and you remove most of it. Picked fully coloured, chillies taste at their most aromatic, and the more often you pick, the more the plant sets. Thin-walled varieties such as cayenne dry right through on a string in the air; thick-fleshed ones like jalapeño go mouldy that way and are better frozen or pickled.
All timings are guide values for the given climate, not a guarantee. Weather, aspect and variety all have a say.