These peppers were meant to be small. This is the 3rd year that we have grown our own peppers. Christmas 2012 we got some tiny peppers, but quite hot peppers in Germany and baptised them Piments de Iena as we did not know their name. We planted some seeds and were rewarded with many small peppers as the species (don’t know it’s real name) grows a lot of fruit. Then we planted a few seeds again.
This Spring for the 3rd time in a row we took the seeds of our cross and sowed them. This time we opened a dry pepper and put the seeds into the soil. To our surprise all of the plants that grew nice and strong started growing huge pepper crops except for one that kept the original size. Now, I know that cross pollination must have happened, especially seen the fact that we had a few bell peppers next to our tiny peppers. We even tried to grow some habaneros in the past or “habs” as the connoisseurs call them, but they do not do so well in our climate on the windowsill. What you can see in the bowl above are the peppers of one single plant. The outcome of the crossing of tiny peppers and bell peppers did not turn out too badly: we have the yield of the tiny peppers, the heat of the spicy peppers but we approach the size of some more impressive peppers.
I have already saved some seeds of this lot, but I am definitely not sure if they will grow again. The likelihood of them being sterile is there after all.
As I joined NanoPoblano for this November and am thus a Pepper, I figured that sharing my peppers is a good idea.
Have you ever undertaken a balcony gardening project?
Has a gardening project surprised you by it’s unexpected turnout?
© Solveig Werner 2015. All rights reserved.
Solveig Werner 
My planting attempts in our garden ended up in tears 😦 We have too many slugs for any veggies to survive. Maybe I should consider pots. Very impressed by your peppers 🙂
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plant peppermint, it will grow under condition that it has enough water… you can put try to create high beds with gravel around them so that the slugs won’t attack. and a very cruel but efficient way to ward of slugs is a plate with beer, they love it and will go there, get drunk and drown (i know it is cruel, I have never done it myself but have seen it’s effects). Maybe some plants that attract birds (sunflowers) will make them realise that there are nice juicy slugs to eat in your garden.
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Wow! you are good at this gardening thing, Solveig, yet another talent.
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I am not too good when a lot of physical labour is involved, thus I like balcony gardening, no weeds…
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Are you keeping the plants over winter? My jalapeno plant is on its 3rd year now and still doing well.
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Ah so far each attempt to keep the plants over the winter turned out rather bleak. Now this plant we got rid of it as we could not keep it outside (due to scaffolding) and as it was infested with tiny flies for some reason, that were really not cool to have in our apartment.
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They could have been aphids? They can infest chilli plants. And yes, you don’t want them going onto other plants!
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they are like fruit flies, just not interested in the big bowl of fruit that sits in the living room… I tried to kill as many as possible and their lifespan does not seem to be long, so hopefully my Grapefruit trees and orchids won’t be affected.
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Hmm. Strange.
Have you thought of using a soap spray? It’s a weak solution of liquid soap in a spritzer bottle
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Ooops… That should have had “and spray the plant” at the end.
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if it happens again, I will try. Now that the plant is gone it will be a bit hard to do so. Thanks for the tip 🙂
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Lovely peppers! I’m not too fond of chillis, but would happily use yours. I’ve grown chillis in pots – the first time it was a mistake, and I had zillions of small ones that I dried and used over ten years or so! The second time was more recently when I got some free seeds and didn’t realise they’d be chillis. Not so prolific as the others, but I haven’t grown them since that first year.
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I am not a big pepper user either. But pepper growing has now turned into a yearly challenge. And they are great for decorating the windowsills.
You could always grow them and sell them as English peppers 🙂 no need to import.
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how exciting to get a surprise in the garden
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Yeah, especially when you have no garden…
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Great idea to show off your peppers!!! I have always wanted to have a windowsill garden, but never had much space nor talent for it. And I definitely never would have thought to try growing peppers! Maybe this year I’ll finally get my act together and give it another go! Thanks for sharing 🙂
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I think we initially started growing them because they can be quite hard to find at times and we wanted them untouched 🙂
We just sowed the seeds that we had in the peppers we had bought or that were given to us. My advice if you grow them, they need plenty of sun, loose soil, and water, a lot but not too much. Once there a fruit the water is important but in limited amount. If you put the plant in a stressful situation the peppers will be hotter. You can start sowing indoors in a small pot and then once the plants have a good size you transplant them.
You are welcome! Thank you for stopping by and commenting.
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These are beautiful! I’ve grown a backyard garden for at least six years, and I feel like the last three have been really troublesome. I need to “dig in” and read up on what I’m doing to finally get it right. My beginner’s luck ran out, I guess. Not that I’m complaining. I did get a freezer full of basil pesto, marinara sauce, and a small box of butternut squash. I just can’t say any of it looked pretty, not even close to your gorgeous peppers! (Which I, of course, want to see painted by you.)
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Oh Trista, I shall take out those paints eventually… I have a lot of writing to do at the moment with NaNoWriMo and NanoPoblano.
Peppers are very very decorative, it was a shame that we had to move them from the windowsill inside before they were ready (inside they don’t do too well).
My mom used to have a patch in her garden where she sowed everything, it was a big mix between flowers and vegetables, that might be a good idea to do it.
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Hi Solveig. Just dropping by via Suzy’s Halloween Party (sorry I’m late… too much butter beer!! Lol) I’ve grown sweet (bell) peppers a couple of times. When we were living in the South East of England, they grew lovely. Further north in Staffordshire, I’ve had a few problems. Reading your post has made me want to try again!
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Hey Sue, no worries. Here bell peppers don’t fare too well either, they take too long to grow. And one fruit per plant is not a very good outcome. Chilli peppers definitely are great when it comes to quantity, except if you grow habaneros in our climates, they don’t like it here.
You should definitely try!
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Your chillies look good I too grow chillies, they grow really well here ..like weeds and hot, hot , hot, it’s coriander I have trouble couldn’t grow it in the UK and can’t grow it here but hey some you win and some you lose..ha ha . Thank you for your follow on blog lovin(my first) 🙂
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I can imagine them growing very very well where you are.
I am trying to figure out if bloglovin is a good way to organise my reading. I finally figured out how to import the blogs I follow on WordPress 🙂 you are definitely welcome.
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I’m not sure I signed up nada, nothing till you:)and it’s probably me but doesn’t display logo on my WP so haven’t really bothered much with it maybe should try again so much to try isn’t there? 🙂
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Yeah it’s not made easy when you are WP com based, thus I put the photo with the seashells up… but I don’t have a big following either. I just figured if I am on there, it might help grow my blog a bit.
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Snap I’m just trying Stumbleon it’s supposed to increase your following send me your blog address and i’ll add you as you can’t add yourself and then you can add me and we will see some people reckon it increases their traffic bigtime I probably won’t be that lucky but hey I like the followers I have and can chat with them if you have too many I don’t thonk that would work…do you? 🙂
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I have not looked into Stumbleupon yet, I just started on the whole twitter thingy… but maybe some day. I just saw a post saying that there is no more stumble upon button on our blogs, that we’ll have to add it ourselves…
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I tried that but didn’t work but then that could be me..ha ha ..not the most PC literate person 🙂
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aw…
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I’m always impressed with anyone who can grow anything. Then you start talking about cross pollination and my admiration grows.
I have no gardening instinct at all … even though I would love to be able to grow and harvest my own vegetable bounty 🙂
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The cross pollination was not on purpose but it is a great surprise. Now we’ll see if the seeds are sterile or not. If they aren’t then that’s great. These plants have such a good amount of crops and a good size too.
You can always try something easy that does not need much care.
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hahahaha! You don’t know the power of my brown thumb! 😉
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I guess not
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