Since the Polytunnel was constructed last December our aim has been two-fold. One was to grow chillis which we hoped to sell, with the profit enabling us to offer low cost services and secondly to create a lovely space for clients to enjoy either chatting amongst the plants or doing a bit of planting or pruning. We have grown 80 chilli plants which are now starting to be harvested, making for exciting times ahead.

Below is the timeline for our chilli growing. – We started with an empty polytunnel and lots of seed trays in the meeting room front window. We planted several packets of seeds, Chilli Bombs. Jalapeno. Chocolate Habanero, Apache and De Cayenne. Chocolate Habanero were a complete no show, not a single seedling! No idea why just dismal. Apache wasn’t much better only 4 seedlings with only 3 making it into the next size pots. But the rest far exceeded our expectations with over 90 seedlings being repotted to their own little pots from the seed trays and then to the next size. From here 80 plants made it to the biggest size pots. Having not done this before we read a lot about chillies and followed a couple of chilli groups on facebook which was brilliant for helpful info.  We now have 80 chilli plants, covered with chillis and are exploring the best options to make the most of our unexpectedly big harvest. We’ll keep you posted with the next step in our chilli journey but in the meantime meals at Garn are even hotter than usual as we test our chillis!