How to grow hot pepper

Do this in the 2–3 days before you sow. Pick a spot with good drainage and morning sun, well away from any tomato, potato, pepper or eggplant plot — those crops leave behind the same wilt and root pests that attack chilli.

Build a raised seedbed about a hand-span high (≈20 cm) so water drains away fast. Seedlings sitting in cold, wet soil rot off at the stem.

Clean the bed — take out old roots, stones and weeds. If you can, sterilise the topsoil: drench it with boiling water, or cover the damp soil with clear plastic in the hot sun for a few weeks. This kills the rot fungi and weed seeds.

Cover the bed with a fine insect-proof net on a low frame. This is the single most important step — it keeps out the thrips and whitefly that bring the viruses that curl and stunt chilli.

Use certified clean seed if you can. If you must use your own saved seed, treat it first against seed-borne anthracnose: soak it in hot — not boiling — water, about 50 °C (hot to the hand but you can still hold a finger in it), for roughly half an hour, then dry it in the shade.

Sow the seed thinly — scatter it, or drop it in shallow lines, so seeds sit about a finger-width apart and never touch. Crowded seedlings grow thin, leggy and rot more easily.

Barely cover the seed — no deeper than a fingernail (a few mm) of fine soil. Chilli seed is tiny; sown too deep it never comes up.

Keep the bed warm and evenly moist — chilli sprouts best at 20–24 °C. Water gently in the morning with a fine rose (a sprinkler head) so you don't wash the seed out, and never leave it waterlogged.

Seedlings take 1–3 weeks to appear. Keep them netted and weeded, and thin out any crowded, weak ones so the rest grow short and stocky.

Start about 1–2 weeks before you transplant — roughly 4–6 weeks after you sowed the nursery.

Cut back the watering — water less often, letting the seedlings feel slightly dry between waterings so their stems toughen.

Open the net and give them more sun each day, a little longer at a time, so they get used to full sunlight and wind.

They are ready when they are sturdy and stocky with 4–5 true leaves (the real leaves that come after the first two rounded seed-leaves), about as tall as your hand is long (15–20 cm) — transplant them then.

Do this in the 2 weeks before transplanting. Choose land that did not grow tomato, potato, pepper, eggplant or okra last season — better still, one rested under a cereal (maize, sorghum) for 2–3 seasons. Those crops share chilli's wilt and nematode enemies and leave them in the soil.

Make raised beds about a hand-span high (≈20 cm) so rain drains away — wet feet kill chilli. Keep each bed narrow enough to reach the middle from the path without stepping on it — about one metre wide.

Work in well-rotted compost or manure — dark and crumbly with no strong smell — to feed the soil and help the bed hold steady moisture. Use only well-rotted material; fresh manure burns young roots.

If your soil is sour (acid) — past crops stayed yellow and stunted, or a test reads below pH 5.5 — work in lime now. Lime also adds calcium, which chilli needs to avoid blossom-end rot (a rot at the bottom tip of the fruit) later.

Work the basal fertiliser into the bed just before transplanting — your recommendation gives the exact amount and type. This phosphorus-rich feed is what drives early rooting.

Buy stocky, dark-green seedlings with 4–5 true leaves and a thick stem — not tall, thin, yellow or pot-bound (roots coiled tight in the pot) ones.

Check each one: no curled, crinkled or mottled (blotchy light-and-dark) leaves — a sign of virus — no wilting, no spots. Reject the whole batch if many look sick.

Buy from a nursery that raises its seedlings under net — those carry the fewest thrips, whitefly and viruses.

Transplant them within a day or two of buying, and keep them shaded and watered until you do.

Transplant in the cool of late afternoon, on transplant day, so the seedlings don't wilt in the midday heat while they settle in.

Set plants about 45 cm apart along the row (a forearm — elbow to fingertip), in rows about 75 cm apart (a full arm's length). Wider rows let air move through and make picking easier.

Plant each seedling to the top of its root-ball — the same depth it grew in the nursery, no deeper. A buried stem rots.

Firm the soil gently around each root-ball so there are no air pockets, then water each plant in straight away to settle the soil around the roots.

Place the basal fertiliser to the side of the plant, not touching the stem or roots — your recommendation gives the amount. Fertiliser against the roots burns them.

Starting a few days after transplanting, walk the whole crop twice a week through the first two weeks, looking closely at plants all over the field, not just the edge by the path.

Wilt: look for plants that suddenly wilt while still green and do not perk up overnight. Cut such a stem and stand it in a clear glass of clean water — a milky-white thread streaming out of the cut confirms bacterial wilt.

If you find wilt: pull out the whole plant with the soil around its roots and destroy it (don't compost it). No spray cures it — pulling out and destroying the sick plants is the only control. If wilt keeps spreading, that bed is infected — don't replant chilli or its relatives there.

Thrips: on the youngest leaves, look for silvery streaks and flecking with tiny black specks of frass (droppings) and upward-curling leaf tips.

Whitefly: brush the plants — if clouds of tiny white flies rise from the leaf undersides they're there; turn a leaf over to see the scale-like young stuck underneath.

Note where the problems are so you can act. Where thrips or whitefly are building, treat early and change to a different chemical group each time (the group number is on the label) — these pests grow resistant fast.

About a week after transplanting, walk the beds and find the seedlings that died or never took root.

Replace them with your spare seedlings — always hold some back in the nursery for this — planted at the same 45 cm spacing and watered in.

Do it in the cool of the evening and water the new plants well, so they settle without wilting.

Fill gaps early — a plant put in two weeks late never catches the rest and makes little.

Keep the topsoil evenly moist while the seedlings root — water every 2–3 days through the first two weeks after transplanting, more often in heat and on sandy soil.

Check with your finger: water when the soil is dry a finger-joint deep (3–5 cm).

Water at the base of the plants, in the cool of morning or evening — wetting the leaves in the heat spreads disease.

Never let the beds waterlog — standing water rots chilli roots and wakes up bacterial wilt. If water pools, open the drains between the beds.

From about 2 to 6 weeks after transplanting, walk the crop twice a week, checking the youngest leaves and growing tips closely — that's where all three troubles show first.

Thrips: silvery flecking with tiny black frass (droppings), and leaves curling upward.

Broad mite: the mites are far too small to see, so read the leaves — young leaves curl downward with a shiny, bronzed (coppery) underside, and the tips go hard, brittle and distorted.

Leaf-curl virus (murda): leaves curl upward, crinkle and pucker, the plant goes bushy and stunted with short joints, and it sets few, small or twisted fruit. It's spread by whitefly and there is no cure — pull out and destroy badly-infected plants.

Aphids: clusters of soft green or black insects on the tips and leaf undersides, with sticky honeydew (their sugary droppings) and a black sooty mould growing on it.

Where a pest is over the top, treat early and change chemical group each time (the group number is on the label) so thrips and mites don't become resistant.

Feed about 4 weeks after transplanting, as the plant is building its frame before flowering.

Give the recommended nitrogen top-up — your recommendation gives the amount — and do not overshoot.

Band it in a line about a hand-span (≈20 cm) to the side of the row, never against the stems — fertiliser on the stem burns it.

Apply onto moist soil (after watering or light rain) and cover it or water it in, so it soaks to the roots instead of gassing off into the air.

Keep the fertiliser off wet leaves — the grains stick and scorch them — and wash your hands afterwards.

Keep the beds weed-free from about 2 to 6 weeks after transplanting, while the plants are small and easily robbed.

Weed shallowly by hand or hoe — chilli roots run near the surface and deep hoeing cuts them.

Lay a reflective (silver) mulch along the beds (or a light straw mulch). Reflective mulch bounces light that confuses and repels thrips, aphids and whitefly, cutting virus spread, and it holds soil moisture steady.

Pull weeds from the field margins too — they harbour thrips, whitefly and the viruses between crops.

From about 2 to 6 weeks after transplanting, water every 4–6 days, keeping the soil evenly moist but never waterlogged — deeper and less often than in the nursery, to draw the roots down.

Check with a finger: water when it's dry a finger-joint deep (3–5 cm).

Water at the base in the cool of the day, keeping the leaves dry to slow disease.

Keep the beds draining — open the furrows between beds if water ever pools.

From about 6 to 10 weeks after transplanting, walk the crop twice a week, now checking flowers and young fruit as well as the tips.

Fruit borer: look for small holes bored into pods and young fruit with sawdust-like droppings (frass) at the hole, and flowers or tiny fruit dropping off. Hang pheromone traps — baited lures that catch the moths — about 5 per hectare to warn you when the moths are active.

Anthracnose: look on fruit and stems for dark, sunken spots, sometimes in rings, with pink-to-orange spore masses in the centre. Start the preventive spray now (next task) — don't wait for lots of it.

Thrips and mites: keep checking the tips for silvering and bronzed, curled growth as before.

Note what you find and act early, changing spray groups each time so the pests and the fungus don't grow resistant.

Start spraying when the first flowers open, and repeat about every 2 weeks, especially through wet, humid weather when anthracnose spreads by rain splash.

Use a recommended protectant fungicide (such as a mancozeb type) — a shield that must be on the fruit before infection. Change to a different chemical group each time (the group is on the label) so the fungus doesn't become resistant.

Cover the fruit and leaves well, undersides included — the fungus lands where the spray doesn't reach.

Spray safely: cover your skin, eyes and nose; spray in the cool of the day with the wind behind you; keep it off food; and wash yourself and your clothes afterwards.

Respect the pre-harvest interval — the number of days on the label you must wait between spraying and picking. Pick too soon and the chemical is still on the fruit you sell and eat.

From about 6 to 10 weeks after transplanting, keep the soil evenly moist right through flowering and fruit set — water every 4–6 days, more often in heat, and never let the plant wilt at this stage.

Water little and often rather than a big flood then nothing — it's the swings that drop flowers and cause blossom-end rot.

Blossom-end rot is mostly a watering fault: steady water lets the plant move calcium into the fruit. Make sure the bed has enough calcium (from lime or gypsum worked in earlier), then keep the water even.

Keep the beds draining — even now, waterlogging rots roots and feeds bacterial wilt.

From about 10 to 13 weeks after transplanting, walk the crop twice a week, checking the ripening fruit closely.

Anthracnose: dark, sunken, sometimes ringed spots with pink-orange spore masses. Pick off and destroy every spotted fruit each pass — a rotten fruit left on the plant seeds the whole bush.

Fruit borer: bored holes with sawdust-like frass; remove and destroy any holed fruit.

Powdery mildew: white, powdery patches on the leaves (worst on the lower, shaded ones), which then yellow and dry — it can spread in warm weather even without rain.

Mites and thrips: keep checking the growing tips for bronzed, curled or silvered growth.

Feed potassium as the first fruit is filling, about 10 weeks after transplanting.

Use the recommended amount and type (a potassium fertiliser such as muriate or sulphate of potash) — your recommendation gives it — banded to the side of the plants, not on the stems.

Apply onto moist soil and water it in so it reaches the roots.

Keep it off the leaves and fruit, off food and water, and wash your hands after.

In rain-fed, wet weather, from about 10 to 13 weeks after transplanting, keep spraying the protectant fungicide about every 2 weeks through fruit fill and ripening.

Change chemical group each time so the fungus doesn't grow resistant, and cover the fruit well, undersides included.

Spray safely: cover skin, eyes and nose; spray in the cool with the wind behind you; keep it off food; wash after.

Obey the pre-harvest interval on the label — the wait between spraying and picking — because you're now picking fruit regularly. If a spray day and a picking day clash, pick first, then spray.

Make the first pick about 10 weeks after transplanting, then go over the plants every week.

Pick to your market: green-mature fruit is full-sized, firm and glossy; red-ripe fruit is fully coloured and hottest — the heat (capsaicin) peaks when it's fully red, so red is best for drying.

Cut each fruit off with a short piece of stalk using a knife or scissors — don't pull or twist, which tears the branch and can strip off next week's flowers.

Wear gloves and keep your hands from your eyes and face — the capsaicin that makes chilli hot burns skin and eyes. Wash your hands well with soap afterwards.

Pick often — going over the plants weekly keeps them flowering and fruiting; ripe fruit left on the bush slows new set.

If a fruit is still soft or pale it isn't ready — leave it: for green chilli wait until it's full-sized, firm and glossy; for the hottest dry chilli, wait until it turns fully red.

This is optional, and only worth it for the hotter perennial kinds (frutescens, chinense) on healthy, disease-free plants — never ratoon a plant that had wilt or bad virus.

At the end of the season (after the last picks, about 5–7 months after transplanting), cut each plant back to about 10 cm of woody stem (a hand-span or less) with 1–2 buds (nodes) left to sprout from.

Re-fertilise and water the cut-back stumps to push strong new growth for a second — even third — year.

Keep scouting the regrowth for thrips, mites and virus just as you would a new crop.

Dry each batch of red fruit as you pick it (from about 13 weeks after transplanting onward). Dry only clean, sound, fully-red fruit — sort out any bruised, rotten or anthracnose-spotted pods first, so they don't mould the whole batch.

Use a solar dryer (a raised rack under clear plastic) rather than the open ground — it dries about twice as fast, keeps the red colour and heat, and denies the mould the slow damp it needs to make aflatoxin.

Never dry on bare ground — it pushes damp back up into the fruit and adds mould, stones, dust and animal dirt. Spread the fruit thinly and turn it so it dries evenly.

Dry until the chilli is brittle and snaps cleanly when you bend it (about one-tenth moisture) — that's the sign it's safe to store.

Store the dry chilli in clean, moisture-proof bags, kept cool, dry and off the floor. Check now and then for any damp or mould.

If a pod bends instead of snapping it isn't dry enough — keep drying before you bag it, or mould and aflatoxin will grow in the bag.