The secret of outdoor peppers

The company believes the success of the outdoor plants was due to their care programme and can easily be copied by gardeners.  It also points out that the excellent outdoor performance was in spite of poor weather for much of July and August.

Mr Fothergill’s trials manager Brian Talman explains the technique.  “Seed was sown during the first week of March, with seedlings being transplanted to 2.5cm cells in mid April.  Planting into larger pots tends to slow plant growth.  In mid May the young plants were set individually into one-litre pots and then on to three- or five-litre pots depending on the growth they had made.  There were six pots of each variety, three of which were grown to maturity in our polytunnel with three being placed outside in mid June.  All received the same regime of regular feeding”.

Brian feels the higher yields from outdoor plants was probably because the temperature was more uniform than the fluctuations experienced in the polytunnel, which can cause young fruits to abort.  The superior flavour is attributable to plants growing in more natural light, while the general health of the plants is due to better utilisation of feed and consequent ability to make more use of natural light.  Trials staff at Mr Fothergill’s cut back on watering as fruits reached full size as this encourages ripening.
 
Seven varieties in the trial were already listed by the company while the remaining 33 were assessed with a view to future introduction. Of the seven, British-bred 'Gusto Purple' had better heat flavour outdoors, 'Orange Baby' was sweeter outdoors than under cover, 'Antohi Romanian' did equally well in both environments, 'Prairie Fire' was bred for indoors, but performed very well outside, 'Orange Wonder' was slower to ripen indoors, while 'Super Chilli' and 'Razzamatazz' both ripened very well outdoors.