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Old 29-11-2007, 07:12 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jul 2006
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Default chilli pepper house plant "Apache" advice

jives11 writes
greetings,

I bought a small potted houseplant Chilli pepper ("Apache") back in
October and have had some excellent chillies from it.

My experience of house plants so far is limited to the hardy Spider
plant, and I'm having a few problems:

1) many of the leaves have small holes and on investigation, there are
pinkish/brown aphids on the undersides. I have tried immersing the
plant upside down in soapy water a few times, then rinsing. This
doesn't seem to help. I have also removed the little blighters by
hand, but they seem to come back.


They do that :-)
Don't pick them off individually, try running your fingers up each side
of the leaves and stems. Do it daily, more often if possible. Eventually
you'll get there. Remember they're born pregnant ;-)

The leaves look a bit dull and limp
too.


Probably the aphids

2) is it normal for the peppers to shrivel on the branch ?


Eventually, yes. I find it a convenient way to store them, others
advocate picking when red and storing some other way (eg deepfreeze)

Most of
mine appear now to have gone from smooth shiny peppers into wrinkled
dark red ones. I have cut some off and chopped and used in food and
they seem to taste fine (i.e HOT). is that normal ?


Yes.

On the plus side I have kept the seeds and planted a few in a pot and
they seem to have germinated so I intend growing some more plants.

Good idea. They don't particularly like the low light levels in winter
so it's handy to have new plants. Keep some seeds in a cool dry place
over winter and sow a few more in spring, too.
--
Kay