Hothouse Shelves for my Chilli Collection

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I’m fitting my bedroom window with simply put up shelves for my mild-heat chilli collection

I’m growing:
Tangerine Dream
Lemon Dream
Sumher
Trinidad Perfume
Black Hungarian

Not for everybody of course, but if you’re okay sacrificing domestic space to plants?
I’m going to put up two shelves which give a vertical gap of 15 inches per shelf across the window. Enough room for chillis if I try to keep them bushy? & I can still open the window easily.
I used ‘No More Nails’ to put the supports up & once it’s all dry & well stuck (24hours) I’ll paint the sides matt white so the light bounces around as much as possible to give even growth without having to rotate pots daily.

I needed to make a good surface for adhesion but that made up for my lack of woodworking skills!
More experienced people commenting pointed out that I shouldn’t trust the adhesive to hold & should add screws to the supports.

Given how rubbish my DIY skills are with all the drilling & screwing complications I thought that if I put up a vertical support in the middle of each shelf that would help take any excessive weight & avoid a big collapse if one support gave out.

Got a broom handle that I can cut to length & paint as a support :-) It won’t take up much space, it’s sturdy & it didn’t cost me anything!

Having trouble getting any wood off a non-euro pallet, only need 2 × 6 inch x 48 inch planks but that wood is rubbish! Online advice is that I should lever up the wood with a crowbar, then knock it down in the hope of revealing the nails that can be removed. This wood is so poor that I’m going to use a chisel to take out space around the securing nails & then pull them with pliers.

Gave the new, stripped window frame & supports a good lick of primer/undercoat in preparation for a gloss finish that will make the area easy to wipe down & also bounce the light around. Which is important…

Finally found some scrap wood to make the shelves at no cost. Bit of measuring & cutting to do.
I saw some sort of spidery webbing on the plants, hopefully not a return of the red spider mites. They won’t win this time if I prepare the environment to foil them.

I’ve used silver Mylar to reflect light back onto the plants thinking that chillies can take any levels of light & heat but that’s wrong. I scorched a few plants even this late in the year by using it. But I think I’ve also learned that, as a very general rule, the hotter the chilli fruit you’re hoping for, the more light it’ll enjoy/tolerate. I’m growing mild, seasoning fruit & some of the seedling’s leaves are as tender as coriander or such like…

• 11 Sep, 2018
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