How Does My Chilli Patch Grow

It all began when I was given some African Birds Eye Chilli seeds from Mozambique. As growing is a passion of mine I was eager to get the seeds into trays and start the germination process. The hot sunny weather in Durban makes germination easy and I almost had a 100% seed germination. 

The seedlings have rapidly grown and the first flowers are due to open. I have further decided to grow seedlings and offer them to nurseries in and around Durban. I figure that there has to be many others who want to improve the heat of their curries and sauces with these fiery hot chillies.

Where does the heat come from in the chilli. Nature provides many ways to distribute seeds and chillies have a unique way of doing this. The seeds and the membrane attached to them have a high capsaicin content. This stuff burns and not great for humans or mammals whose digestive system is too acidic and breaks down seeds.  So Chillies are doing their best to be as hot as they can to avoid been eaten, But birds do not have the same digestive systems and seeds are dispersed over a wide area for natural regrowth. An older method of determining just how hot a chilli is was measured in Scoville Units. An African Birds Eye Chilli has an average Scoville rating of 200 000 Scoville Units. Pretty hot if you aren't a chilli head. Peri Peri is often made using African Birds Eye Chillies. 

Follow my blog as I grow chillies from seeds to harvest and perhaps you may want to grow some your self. This is a great and fun hobby to do. A  word of caution though is that the chillies are also hot on the outside so always handle with gloves.