Bravo Fatalii I found both Aji Fantasy and Aji Finlandia in my local K Supermarket (at the Soukka mall in Espoo) and as an experiment I stuffed a few with ricotta and bacon and some chives (ruohosipuli), then roasted them for 10 minutes or so. Fantastic! Aji Finlandia is sublime for roasting, utterly delicious. Aji Fantasy maybe wasn't quite as nice, but it was still excellent.



I snacked on one raw Aji Fantasy later, just ate it like an apple, and it was brilliant! Very much just like a nice piece of fruit. Crunchy and delicious. Excellent I hope they're selling well!

Lainaus käyttäjältä: Chilinferno - tammikuu 04, 2011, 21:52:50 ip

you mean the radioactive, evil guy don´t you?

Actually I still have no idea what that one was! I tasted it and it was nothing to write home about, flavour was quite immature and the heat was a non-event. I think it might be some sort of weird mutation of a Naga Morich, since I planted some Naga seeds from the same batch as I used and the foliage looks identical.

Update: After a long, tasty season I hacked all of my plants back to short stems. All are now putting out fresh leaves - my plan is to keep them trimmed to a reasonable bonchi size.

I'm now pretty sure that the plant I had trouble identifying is actually Luiza Yellow Pumpkin. I had a good crop of small orange pods from it, and they were very, very tasty! Medium heat, nice fruity flavour. My favourite plant of the season after the Aji Cristal.

Awesome!

What are the specs on the LEDs there? Are they providing the main growing energy?

This is that plant I'm having trouble identifying. The flowers appear to be chinense type, and the pods are smooth and green. I guess it can't be Naga, since their smooth, so maybe its Peito de Moca?


Black Scorpion Tongue continues to put on pretty pods:


And this is the super cute Bonnet Bell - the photo isn't very good, sorry!

Apologies for lack of updates and pictures, its been a very busy summer (got married, family visiting Finland for a long time, etc). All is going great with my little windowsill farm - I've been eating a steady stream of delicious Aji Cristals all summer, and a second wave of flowers is now coming on my best producers.

Thoughts:
- Aji Cristal is an amazing plant. Easy to grow and delicious - I think I'll be growing several of these every year.
- Birds Eye Baby is prolific, and very pretty! Taste is OK as well.
- Black Scorpion Tongue is very decorative, and tastes OK.

Two of my chinense are covered with flowers and I'm getting pods from them - one keeps putting out those tiny little red pods that I have no idea what they are. Very confusing & mild. The other one has put out some pods about 3cm long that are smooth and green - I'll have to take some photos to share, I can't ID them. My Bonnet Bell has a couple of pods coming, which I'm really looking forwards to tasting

Oh! I check Citymarket regularly but haven't for a couple of weeks.

I made a pot of chile con carne with home grown Aji Cristal last night between green and orange, and loved it - very unusual flavour, fruity and sweet. I don't have enough plants to keep up with my own demand though so I'll be buying yours regularly

Those look delicious, can't wait for them to hit the stores (although my own are producing well so far!). Any ETA?

Whats your favourite maturity level to eat them at? I'm thinking of using some fresh in salads.

Cheers, sure does Anbanero. I really like the looks and the way it grows, so I'll definitely be saving seeds from that pod.

More pictures!
Today I spotted a cute shiny Birds Eye Baby pod:


And this incredibly evil radioactive looking pod, I have no idea what it is but the flowers look like a Chinense. The plant is growing very strange, so I have a feeling the pod is abnormally small for the variety. I'm scared of this pod. Any ideas what it could be?


Aji Cristal is churning out pods and they all look delicious:


Lots of babies ready (overdue in fact) for replanting:


Baby bell finally sprouting, after a month! Kitten damage is visible on the tags (same kitten that likes uprooting young chile plants):


And the rest of my latest planting. Half have sprouted:


I'm thinking that I will soon buy some buckets and transfer my favourite plants into them and out onto the balcony. Is there anything to be wary of with this move?

Mine appeared in late March, so maybe 7 weeks? I probably could have picked mine a week ago.

Well, I picked that Black Scorpion Tongue today:



And sacrificed most of it to add to some fajitas I ate the rest raw - quite mild, very easy-going sweet flavour, reminded me a lot of bell pepper. Gave a very welcome bit of warmth to the fajitas - I think adding two would have been a nice level of heat for these. Given how pretty this one is I think I have definitely recommend it!

A few more pictures of tasty looking little pods:

I think this might be Luiza Yellow Pumpkin - its an incredibly cute little yellow pod:


Aji Cristal is producing some delicious looking pods - when is it best to pick these?


And that Black Scorpion Tongue looks really tasty, think I'll pick it imminently:

Yeah I agree, its definitely easier to transfer pollen with a fingertip. Its a bit of a clumsy tool when it comes to smaller flowers though!

Sounds like a useful resource, Michael.

FWIW I'm now starting to see results with a simple "stick a fingertip in and swish it around" method: http://chilifoorumi.fi/index.php?topic=6388.msg95409#msg95409

Direct link to Michael's blog translated into English: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmichaelsalemssonchili.blogspot.com%2F&sl=sv&tl=en

So far Limon and Bonnet Bell have "popped", with any luck there'll be plenty more soon.

As the pod matures I'm thinking this might actually be Black Scorpion Tongue after all:


And it looks like my fertilizing by "stick a fingertip in and swish it around" is actually achieving something with Aji Cristal:


There are two more like it

Nice
I've got a similar problem with my garden, I've had hundreds of flowers but I'm getting very little fruit - only one small one so far. An Annuum I bought last year however has produced 5 fruit on its own in just a few weeks. The paintbrush method didn't seem to work very well for me.

Short update - planted 15 more varieties today for my indoor garden!

C. baccatum:
Orchid
Starfish
Criolla Sella
CGN 22871

C. annuum:
Baby Bell Pepper
Ethiopian Brown

C. chinense:
Pink Habanero
Orange Habanero
Petenero
Limon
Chocolate Fatalii
Cheiro Amarela

C. chinense x annuum: Bonnet Bell F3
C. galapagoense
C. cardenasii var. pendulum: Ulupica Large

I may have started some of the bigger ones too late, as I intend them to go on the balcony. We'll see, I guess.

When I last pruned my Aji Cristal (boy those things love to grow) I looked at the leftovers and thought "such a waste" so I trimmed one piece back to two leaves and stuck it into some soil and put it under the LED lamp. I was fully expecting it to die - but here it is a month later:


And heres the whole garden (for now):


The biggest plants and a few of the ones in little pots will go into nice big pots and live on the balcony as soon as it stops getting below zero overnight - hopefully I'll have a nice crop in the summer

Only problem now is that the windowsill for the lounge is full XD I need to install windowsill under the bedroom and kitchen windows to house my expanding collection! Also still looking for a good solution for pollinating my plants.

I think I misidentified the Black Scorpion Tongue - the pod is clearly yellow and looks very much like a Short Yellow Tabasco.

I don't think its for lack of light - we've had an awesome week here, lots of direct sunlight..

Work has been crazy since my last update, didn't have a chance to start fertilizing flowers until recently, but the plants have been putting out lovely flowers at a steady rate

First pod a couple of days old on Black Scorpion Tongue:


How do you guys fertilize your indoor plants? I've been using a small paintbrush but i'm having a lot of difficulty getting much pollen on it.

Looks good!

I found on my lights that I needed to add a small fan running at minimum speed to get the air flowing around the heatsink fins. Without it the light unit (18W of CREE XR-E) got up around 90 degrees. With it running at minimum speed the fixture stays at room temperature.

Keep us posted