Chilli crop doing well!

One result of all the hot weather has been that out chilli crop has come on really well...

 

But, consumers of this season's Tassel  Pickles Dragon range of produce beware... According to this article our chillis this year could be extra hot!

Chillies that ripened during the hot, dry weather will be much spicier than normal, farmers have warned.

Salvatore Genovese, one of Britain’s leading chilli farmers, said peppers that grew in extreme conditions could be up to 20 per cent hotter to taste. His farm in Bedfordshire grows a million chillies a week including the infamous Carolina Reaper, which can top 2.2 million on the Scoville heat scale. He supplies most of the main supermarkets.
“If the plant gets angry, or if you stress the plant you will have a hotter chilli. Extra heat will give you a much hotter chilli,” Mr Genovese said.

Joy Michaud, who runs Sea Spring Seeds in Dorset, said: “The hotter the conditions, the hotter the chilli. We know chillies vary from month to month, so a chilli from the summer will be a lot hotter than a chilli from the same plant in the autumn.”

We shall see. One thing is for sure, our crop is much more advanced than normal and we could have some ready to use within a couple of weeks. Normally we don't harvest until about October.