Pimientos de Padrón, the race is on.

As you may have read in previous blogpost, my mother had sent me six packets of Padrón pepper seeds, myself and few friends are all growing them. It's been called a competition, but how we are going to judge who wins or looses is anyone's guess. It has been mentioned, mainly by myself, of us all getting together and having a Harvest Fiesta with our pimientos. That is more up my street. Today's blogpost is just about how we are all getting on.

Sally

Firstly we have Sally, she was the first to start her seeds off. To say she's a bit competitive is like saying Einstein's a bit clever. Trouble is, she can back it up. As the saying goes "What she doesn't know, ain't worth knowing". So she has started her seeds off in a heated greenhouse with the temperature staying between 15°C and 20°C. These are her seedlings from about two weeks ago. They have now been potted on.

Phill

Next is Phill, aka Suffikboi, who started about a month after Sally. He's been very scientific about it all. As you can see, he's used seed trays with one seed in each using multipurpose compost that was left in the kitchen near a window (sunny and south facing) 24 hours before planting to keep warm. Once planted, the compost was kept moist with warmed water so that the temperature of the compost wouldn't drop. Half had a heat mat under at 24°C, 90% germination after a week. The other half hadn't germinated after two weeks with the kitchen temperature at about 20°C. Now that's dedication.

Michelle

Michelle has had a bit of misfortune, she has her seedlings growing on the kitchen windowsill, doing quite well as it goes, until one of her cats decide it's a good spot for a snooze resulting killing all but two seedlings. These now are well out of reach from the cat, with foil under the pot to help increase fruit with less aphid damage. As for the cat, I suggested a Davey Crockett style hat.

Liam

This is Liam's first time growing any type of chilli. He has used one of his herb planters he makes. Once filled with compost and seeds sown, he had left it under the stairs for a few weeks to keep warm, while also keeping the soil moist. Like myself, he doesn't have a greenhouse, so he has them in a utility room windowsill in the sun.

Richard

Lastly, myself. Above are my first sowing. Directly into pots, soil kept moist on a windowsill. It took bloody ages to germinate, but slowly they did. Two weeks later I used a propagator, lid and all, didn't take half as long. Clearly I needed to cover the first batch in some way.

Now I did say to Sally that I have a trick up my sleeve. I don't want to let my ancestors down, the only one descended from Galicia and not able to grow pimientos de Padrón. I was given six seeds packets, so I've sneakily added another competitor. Let's call him Mr. Newman. He's a friend from work and by his own admission , he kills everything he tries to grow. Before he knew what had happened, he was holding the last seed packet. I'm not going to loose this one. But the joke's on me. On his shift there is a man know as the Genius, knows everything about everything, he has an allotment as well. Mr. Newman has only gone and given him the seeds to grow on his behalf. Oh well! As yet I don't have a report yet on our last grower.

I'd like to thank everyone taking part for taking the time to send the information and photos. I'd also like to apologize for taking my time in putting it all together. Till next time and thanks for reading.