Don’t Stop B Living! Susy B Update

Last month we alighted in lovely Lincolnshire to peruse Susy B’s patch and parse the particulars of her growing methods. Whilst an update might seem premature, we’ve noticed some very interesting developments at chez Susy and couldn’t resist the urge to peep a little deeper. Join us as we delve into the progress and profiles of the peppers Susy has in play. 

Cutting and thrusting with rude vigour and fruitfulness-ness, Susy’s peppers are being grown in a system comprised of 1Pot and easy2grow modules in her greenhouse. Cayennes, Bright Stars, Akrons, Jalapeños, Padrons, Lemon Dreams, Apaches, Scotch Bonnets, and Hungarian Hot Waxxxxxesss are all apparently thriving. 

Of all the plants in Susy’s greenhouse, we’re probably least surprised to see the Cayennes flourishing. These are relatively adaptable to non-native climates. They can can cope with reduced temperatures, and lower light levels. With 60/70 days from germination to harvest the Cayennes offer a pretty quick route to straightforward heat-injecting flavour. Susy will dry the fruits to produce versatile powders and flakes. True, Cayenne’s are a fairly commonplace chilli but they’re popular for a reason. They lend your food extra heat without changing the complexion of the dish as a whole. Susy’s AutoPot-grown examples are now readily flowering and fruiting.

A first for Susy, Bright Stars are excellent sweet, crisp, bell peppers that range from green to orange in hue. These enjoy sunny but sheltered conditions, a well drained grow media, and benefit from correct watering. As Susy’s AutoPot system only irrigates in response to plant consumption the watering couldn’t really be any more ‘correct’. The plants certainly seem to be taking off as a result. Once two or three peppers have appeared you can safely pick a few to encourage further fruits to develop. Top tip – like many peppers, Bright Stars enjoy a little extra humidity which can easily be generated by damping down your greenhouse floor. 

Quite the byword for a ‘party pepper’, jalapeños are a firm favourite of Susy’s. However, some of her guests (crop) seem hellbent on being fashionably late. This is undoubtedly due in no small part to this year’s challenging growing conditions. The ‘Early’ jalapeños are only just starting to flower although the fundamentals are there with plenty of nice vegetative growth.

Elsewhere Susy’s Tam Jalapeños are expected to be late. They can’t help it, it’s just their nature to feature towards the tail end of the season. These mildly aromatic chillies are even easier on the palate than regular jalapeños but no less flavoursome for it. Once in full cry the plants are notoriously prolific in terms of fruiting. 

Laden with fruit in the here-and-now is Susy’s Zapotec Jalapeño plant. Legend has it that these chillies have clear lineage dating back to the Aztecs so you’re literally eating history where they’e concerned. Indeed, the depth of flavour the fruits deliver is suggestive of a long cultivated variety. 

By no stretch spicy but stunningly delicious nonetheless, Susy’s Lemon Dream peppers should be great for salads and the like. As their appearance and their name suggests they are very sweet with a dreamy heat. Productive and compact, these plants have always proven to be a great source of fruit when we’ve grown them in the past – often you can repeatedly simply pick and return! Susy’s examples are already bristling with pods, a promising proposition if ever there was one!

On paper an Akron is a versatile, if fairly run-of-the-mill sweet pepper. In the flesh Susy’s AutoPot-grown Akrons are anything but ordinary, These are the biggest peppers ever Susy has ever succeeded in growing and they’’re far from done yet. On top of that she still has abundant flowers coming through. The main dilemma is whether to pick the initial crop and excite further fruiting or await the ripening of the existing prize specimens – decisions, decisions!

One pepper that makes your mind up for you is the Padron. Wildly popular in Susy’s household and the wider world, this ‘tapas pepper’ is great when picked young and fried up with a liberal seasoning of salt and extra spice. Mostly the flavour is nuttily-sweet but Padrons like to play a wildcard now and then and you often get a random hot one just to increase the gastronomic jeopardy. Susy’s Padrons are already ranging up to 4ft in height and have been harvested extensively. Still the pods keep coming! 

Compact in size and taking a relatively lengthy 100 days to harvest, the Apache is an absolute shoo-in for Susy’s easy2grow modules. Want a hot salsa or an amped up Thai chilli dish? These cute-looking pods will fit the bill perfectly. They possess a sharp, fiery initial kick followed by a sweet finish. The great advantage of such varieties is their small plant size, meaning you can have a go wherever you grow. 

If there’s one variety you can be sure is brewing up intense heat and flavour it’s the Scotch Bonnet. It looks like a wizened brain. It looks like it’s thinking really hard about being hot. Bushy by nature, Susy’s plants are showing robust vegetive growth but are not expected to start fruiting and flowering for a good few weeks yet. 

Nonetheless the Bonnets are thirsty which has made automatic irrigation and absolute lifesaver. Also great for reducing maintenance is a little bit of pruning to the nether regions. In our experience it can pay to remove some of the lower leaves on chilli plants in to reduce the chances of pathogen ingress – oh yes!

Hungarian? Tick! Hot? Tick! Waxy? Tick! Hungarian Hot Wax chillies offer an intriguing blend of flavours depending on the stage at which you harvest, plus a texture that lends itself to multiple culinary delights. These peppers are blessed with a pleasing warmth that never overpowers. 

In their lime-green state of ripeness, Hungarian Hot Wax fruits can lend your dishes a sweetish flavour. As the they develop further and redden the heat from within magnifies. It’s a handily available pepper at most stages of maturation, meaning that, within reason, you can pick and use as-and-when required. 

Normally the Hungarian Hot Wax take around 80 days to mature. Some of Susy’s ordinarily-potted plants look to be right on that trajectory. Not the AutoPot-grown chillies though. These are towering over ordinarily-potted plants that were started at exactly the same time. Another clear case of AutoPot time travel wethinks – plants beamed into future dimensions, exceeding normal growth rates through responsive irrigation! We’ve seen dramatic changes like these occur in as little as a month on previous occasions. And by the look of Susy’s peppers since our first visit we’d say, ‘it is happening again’. 

Given the unusually mild and fluctuating conditions this season it is hard to pin anything down when crediting Susy’s success. But it’s fairly safe to say that her plants are getting the best possible start by being granted the opportunity to draw exactly the water they need, when they need it. Apart from saving labour, the AutoPot Watering Systems have really helped to counter the unpredictability of ‘correct’ watering in variable conditions. It’s heartening to see. 

Conditions this year notwithstanding, peppers are generally well suited to a U.K. climate, especially with the right approach to plant care. There’s a wide world of varieties out there positively begging to be grown, why not give them a go?! Susy can even make the taste of AutoPot-grown peppers that little bit sweeter! Head to her linktree right now to find exclusive discounts on our systems!