hello all, i have grown my own habanero and jelapino chilli plants and they grew fast until they started flowerin now everytime a flower comes it dries up and drops off, ive got about 15 all together and only 3 produced 1 chilli each last year. now the plants are growing more leaves and flowers but nothing yet? can anyone tell me wat i should do?. I only planted them about june last year and now there is little white bugs crawlin round in the soil, ive got a crawling insect killer spray and it seems to work. but still no chillies?

They won't be liking the winter, so just concentrate on giving them good light and getting them safely through to spring. If you're getting new leaves and flowers at the moment, you're obviously doing things right.

My guess is that the little white bugs are the larvae of fungus gnats - you can confirm this if you also have tiny black flies crawling around the edge of the pot. If so, then I'd be inclined to get some fresh compost, get rid of all the old compost from around the roots, and repot them into clean pots and fresh compost.

Chillis are pretty good at sorting out fertilisation for themselves. No need to go around with a little paintbrush pretending to be a bee. But you do need them somewhere where pollinating insects can get at them. Spraying with a fine spray of water sometimes helps fruit setting.

You don't want any chillis just yet - as I understand it, the temperature of the chilli is directly related to how warm it was when it was ripening. So really you'd like your fruits forming from May onwards.

They won't set fruit unless they have sufficient light intensity, which they won't have even in a south-facing window at this time of year. So you either wait till May, or use growlights.

Normally people plant chilli seeds in Feb and get them to fruit same year. Overwintering in UK is usually reckoned to be tricky - when I tried they all died - but if you manage it you get them off faster than regrowing from seed.

On Feb 24, 6:07*pm, grant_c_2k7
wrote:
hello all, i have grown my own habanero and jelapino chilli plants and
they grew fast until they started flowerin now everytime a flower comes
it dries up and drops off, ive got about 15 all together and only 3
produced 1 chilli each last year. now the plants are growing more leaves
and flowers but nothing yet? can anyone tell me wat i should do?. I only
planted them about june last year and now there is little white bugs
crawlin round in the soil, ive got a crawling insect killer spray and it
seems to work. but still no chillies?

--
grant_c_2k7

You may be suffering from a lack of humidity problem.