Prices Spices September Update:

With a jungle on their hands at their greenhouses near Stratford-upon-Avon, Prices Spices are now about to start cropping the ripe chillies. 

It’s the ultimate pay off for all the care and attention that has been invested in the past few months. The AutoPot Watering Systems are simple to assemble, allow the plants to control irrigation and are low maintenance to run – sure! We all know that! But the propagating, potting and potting on, the monitoring and the parental angst that comes of having thousands of children to look after – that physical and mental energy which all gardeners must summon up – there’s just no way around that. Only at harvest time can you truly be sure that all that effort will amount to something more than lessons learnt. 

Happily, Prices’ crop is enormous and healthy. Verily the huge weight of the fruit produced by the plants has further increased the workload in the final stages of growth. Never before have Prices had so many plants with supports whose branches are still tearing themselves away from the stem – such is the sheer weight of the chillies they are bearing. Obviously goes to show what can be accomplished with a great system!

Prices have also benefited in no small way from the excellent, customary support delivered by CANNA. Not only have CANNA been, involved in the set up and on standby to advise from distance they have also sent multiple delegations of their top consultants to guide Prices on their growing journey.

In order to manage the myriad considerations of growing Prices have devised an ingenious app by the name of iHarvest. As used by Prices, iHarvest allows growers to log what water and nutrients they are putting into the FlexiTanks. Growers can set up grow systems and sub tanks within the app to record what pH and EC each FlexiTank contains. iHarvest allows growers log pH and EC at plant level too. 

The other side of the app will track the varieties that you’re growing and allows you to compare the effectiveness of growing techniques used. You simply select the chilli or tomato varieties you have growing, select the grow system in use and then whenever you pick fruits enter the quantity and weight of your crop. 

Do this every time you pick some and you will get a bigger picture at the end of the season as to when your crops come in and the yield you can expect. The app automatically creates graphs and reports to allow you to view your data easily. If you want to use the app then simply head to iharvest.pricesspices.com and create your free account. The only requirement is that you give the Prices Spices Facebook page a Like as a thank you.

This season, without even starting the main harvest, Prices have picked 50kg of fruit. In the last week of August alone they picked the excess, ripe 7 Pot Yellow chillies. This pick yielded a huge 6kg box full of ripe yellow fruits without making so much as a dent on the main harvest still growing on the 12 plants of that variety.

So it’s going well then! We eagerly await more details as the main harvest approaches, for updates check out @pricesspices  @AutoPotSystems on Facebook and pricesspices  autopot_global on Instagram.