Chili cultivation in winter?

Question: Can you also cultivate chillies indoors in winter?

Answer: Like all plants, chillies require a few things to grow. Here, one should distinguish between the first few weeks of life of a chili plant (germination, first real pair of leaves) from further growth up to flowering, pollination and harvesting.

Let``s start with the general needs of chillies:

• Nutrients
• Warmth - chilies need a lot of this
• Light for photosynthesis (the production of energy-rich materials from lower-energy materials with the help of light energy)

Chillies get their nutrients from the earth, therefore they need a sufficiently large pot with a diameter of at least 20cm, and good garden soil. High quality soil costs about 0,10 to 0,12 Euro per litre. It is more cost-effective to produce your own compost from nutrient-rich garden soil. Over the course of their growth, however, you should use a fertiliser, such as our Bio Chili fertiliser.

For successful growth, chillies need a lot of warmth, at least 20-22 °C depending on the type.

In a room, even directly by the window, the light conditions for chillies are very poor. This is particularly true during the dark winter months. You must ensure that chili plants get enough daylight, otherwise they won`t grow, and will shed their leaves. To help with this you can purchase so-called daylight lamps, or growth lamps with high luminosity. These lamps mimic natural sunlight and allow the chili plants to photosynthesise.

The answer to the question of whether chili plants can also be cultivated in winter is a definite YES, but one has to deal with the following problems.

• High energy costs for the daylight lamps
• High heating costs for the necessary warmth
• Insect infestations

Whether it is worth attempting to cultivate chilies in winter is not the question. If you do attempt it, then we recommend the following procedure. Build a sufficiently large indoor greenhouse (e.g. an old aquarium), fit it with growth lamps and lay down heating cable or mats. This method is clearly more effective than putting one lamp over a plant. Otherwise, the processes involved in chili cultivation are the same as they are in the summer. You should read through this information:

https://www.chili-shop24.com/chili-cultivation-instructions

https://www.chili-shop24.com/chili-cultivation-diary-2013