Growing chili plants in Belgium

Few people in middle and northern Europe realize that growing chili peppers here is possible without greenhouses. We are all aware that the large paprikas can be grown, but the smaller and more special peppers escape attention.
Since few people are growing in our colder climates, little information is available on how to get the best results. Graeme Caselton has an overwhelming amount of information on chili growing in general. Following his diary on growing chili peppers in England, I decided to put the results and findings of my attempts to grow peppers in Belgium on a web page.

Some general remarks

• Belgium is in zone 8, and has in summers average temperatures above 20 °C, but winters with quite a lot of frost making overwintering chili plants difficult. For each year I'm including the average temperatures for each month. These come from the Belgian Metereological Institute.
• The seeds are planted at the end of Februari, the seedlings moved to a sun house as soon as the frost has gone, and moved outside by the end of May. If in automn peppers have not ripened by the time the first frost appears again, the plants are moved in the sun house again.

Table of Contents

• 1997
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• 2003