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Yes, it has finally happened – one of the chilli fruits has ripened into a lovely red colour! You may remember Retired Father planted out the chilli plants about a month or so ago (they were getting too big for the windowsills), and despite the torrential rain, changes in temperature, and strong winds, the chillis have not given up!

A fortnight ago I taste tested one of the green chillis and though it was quite hot it was not sweet, nor particularly flavoursome. I hoped they would ripen and the flavour would improve a with all the sunshine. However, when the weather starting changing I was not too hopeful of any fruits ripening and thought I would just leave them in the border for garden interest, but as you can see the chillis just didn’t have any truck with this and one plucky one has done its own thing!

Btw: I must stress how important it is to wash your hands thoroughly after handling raw chillis. I thought I had been carefull: removing the seeds and spines, and then washing my hands – only to touch my eyelid 2 hours later and the suffer the sheer zapping sting of the chilli

And don’t rinse your eye with water as I did because this just swirls and spreads the stingy stuff around the eye! Instead take a cotton wool ball dipped in milk and this should soothe the area).