Chili Growing Introduction

Chilies are one of the most wonderful plants to grow, because they come in such a wide variety of colours, sizes, tastes, and spice-levels. Chilies can be either an annual (must be replanted each year) or a perennial (grow back on their own).

There are also three general types of chili: sweet, hot and ornamental. All three types have some level of spice, but sweet chilies are the mildest, ornamental have lovely colours and shapes (but can be very hot), and hot chilies are used primarily for their intense spice and flavour.

• Chilies range from green, butter yellow, peachy orange, and fire-engine red, to plum and a pitch black hue. The colour doesn't have a direct correlation to the flavour or spice level of each chili pepper.
• Visit a local nursery to find out what variety will thrive in your local environment.
• Certain chilies are used in different areas of the world for special recipes; for example, Serrano chilies are used primarily in Mexican dishes, habanero peppers are common throughout Mexico and Latin America, and the Calcutta pepper is used in Asian curries.[1]

If you don’t live in the traditional chili growing zones (near the equator), then you may benefit from growing your chilies indoors in pots during the winter, and then transplanting them outdoors in the spring when the weather warms up. Although you can certainly just plant your seeds directly into the ground, you might not have as high of chances of them sprouting than if you start them indoors and transplant them as seedlings.

• You can grow chilies from seeds or starts from nurseries, but you’ll have much more variety with growing the former.
• Starting seedlings is easy; just plan it out at least 6 weeks prior to transplanting the chilies outdoors. Chilies can be transplanted outdoors after your area's last frost date.