April arrived with all the presents that a man could desire and trials that would break many mortals. The prison project at times makes me think it may be easier to get out than get into Channings Wood Prison but it’s all starting to take shape.

We shoe horned a 12 ton lorry with 16 pallets of growing media from Growth Technology through the gates with inches to spare and 2500 AutoPot watering systems, FlexiTanks, pipes and AQUAvalves from AutoPot UK.

So now all the tunnels are ready, the growing system is ready but one small piece in the master plan was missing! The plants? And lots of plants 2500 plants to be exact.

But what sort of plants? Should it be the run of the mill? Jalapeño, Nagas, or the super hots? After long hours and many Erdingers followed by endless calls to customers and sauce makers the DCM is going hyper hot! Tunnels full of the mythical sounding super hybrids, The Borg 9, Sepia Serpent, Genghis Khan, Apocalypse and the Kraken. Alongside will be 4 dedicated tunnels for commissioned grows containing some of the world’s most spicy and respected variety’s.

But this monumental grow had a slight problem! None of the hyper hots where available in any quantity in the UK this soon. So we needed a plan and a good plan or at least a man with a plan!

Dean Finley owner of the Chilli Lab was the plan! As early as October 2014 plants where being isolated as far afield as Italy for seed stock, as well as being grown out in the lab over winter in the UK. The Chilli Lab was fitted out with 14 deluxe VITOPODS, from Greenhouse Sensations along with a full range of T5 lighting from Growth Technology! it created one of the UK’s biggest hybrid chilliplant propagation facility’s churning out a staggering 1000 plants a month. Testament to the value of the VITOPOD and lighting T5 lights.

As always, many thanks go out to Jason from AutoPot UK, Growth Technology and Jim Duffy, the Pepper King of Refining Fire Chilli’s and for the endless advice and support for this project.

Hello fellow Chilliheads/Growers

I’ve been just as busy in March to the point I don’t know where that month went !!

The plants are absolutely flying now and I’m now starting to think about potting on, I now have about 400 chilli plants in a lean-to which are under a grow light, this is the first time I’ve used such a method outside before but it does seem to make a difference in helping with the low light levels this time of year, I’m maintaining a minimum temperature of 10°C with the help of an LPG heater that I bought for the princely sum of £1.00 at a farm auction, this is set to come on if the temp falls lower than 10°C.

I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that I have the amazing opportunity to use eight polytunnels which are going to be used in a unique project as they are in the grounds of HMP Channingswood. I have Collaborated with Autopot.co.uk on this and without their help & generosity this new venture would not have been possible, so a big thank you to all at Autopot for having confidence in me.

I plan to have around 1500 Chilli plants in the eight polytunnels and around 600 in my glasshouse of which are all in the process of being prepped. Here are a few pictures of where I’m at.

I can’t believe a month has passed since I first introduced myself on the Chilefoundry.

I’ve had one of the craziest months for a long while, bearing in mind that this is supposed to be the quieter part of the year. Ive been busy potting seedlings on, I usually sift my compost and add perlite myself but 2 weeks ago I had a hernia operation so to make things easier for myself I bought a 50L sack of Biobizz “All.Mix” of which I was impressed with and now have two grow tents bursting at the seems it was so much easier to pot on because of the fact that the seedlings were established in the Grodan Cubes. I have lights in the Clone Box Tents and have them set to be on for 14 hours per day and this seems to be ok for the moment.

Now one of reasons that I’ve had such a crazy month is I’ve been trying to secure some polytunnels for the expansion of DevonChilliman & as of 5pm Thursday 26th February I signed a contract and can now tell you all that I have 8 polytunnels these are a great size, being 35M x 9M.

Another exciting piece of news is I have colaborated with my favourite artisan producer Adam Marks, as most of you will know is Mr Vikkis and he is based in Cumbria. Along with my passion for chillies the other passion in my life for over 20 years is the love for Indian food. I discovered Adam’s delights when I attended The Upton Cheyney Chilli Festival back in 2012 which is run by Alex & Louise Duck.

I couldn’t believe the flavours and authenticity of Mr Vikkis products & since that day I have become obsessed with them, my local Indian restaurant of which I have frequented for all this time must wonder what has happened to me!, so when Adam contacted me and asked if I would like to do a Mr Vikkis/DevonChilliman colaboration I honestly couldn’t believe it !!!.

So I have supplied him with the worlds hottest chillies the “Carolina Reaper” that I grew here in Devon in my glasshouse in 2014 for the “Superhot Chilli Pickle” which we have now called “King Reaper” …my “Chilli Caped Crusader” now wears a crown on the jars. This really is a superhot pickle for those Chilliheads who have worked their way through the ranks and are looking to get their next level fix.

Adam also wants me to supply him with all his Nagas this coming season,so I will dedicate one polytunnel for the variety “King Naga” and another polytunnel for the “Naga Morich” variety…so all in all I’m living my chilli dream at the moment and it seems funny to have a business that I class as a hobby as it really doesn’t feel like work.

Well that’s what I’ve been up to, I will be back in March with another update.

My wife and I have been running our catering business since 1990. Although we love what we do, my real underlying passion has been all things Chilies for around 20 years, yes I’m what’s known as a “Chillihead” With this passion (obsession maybe) we have decided to diversify and create “Devonchilliman”

In 2013 I went from growing around a dozen chili plants at home to growing 200+ plants and rented 5 x plots in a local community shared glasshouse in Teignbridge.I had a very successful harvest of which I decided to use the chillies in our produce & started to make products with them, we then decided to have a catering unit wrapped in a chilli theme and it’s first outing was at “The Great Dorset Chilli Festival” of which was a huge and enjoyable success. The products we sold were ChilliSteakburgers, Chilli Hot Dogs, Pakora Battered Jalapenos. We almost sold out of our entire stock of Jalapenos in the first day but luckily DARTH NAGA and JAMIE SYTHES were at hand & rushed off to the Wiltshire Chilli Farm to harvest more !.

I now rent a 36 meter glasshouse and in 2014 grew 600+ chili plants and now have a website which is www.Devonchilliman.co.uk of which I sold fresh UK grown chilies and sent out via post/courier to my customers. I have just started as of 14th January 2015 sowing my seeds for the 2015 growing season. Last year I soaked the seeds in a week black tea solution as I heard that the tannin in tea softens the seed casing and then I planted them into compost in my Propagator. This year I have soaked some but not all, I currently have almost 400 x seeds in “GRODAN” cubes of which I soaked the cubes in a week solution of “Canna Start” 1ml/1Litre of water they are now in the Propagator set at 27°C and they are starting to germinate already. This I find the exciting part of the season!

After trailing products from Greenhouse Sensations and Growth Technology I am starting to experiment with more advanced propagation techniques this year, namely the hydropod an aeroponic unit.

I plan to move the seedlings when the first set of true leaves appear to the hydropod and am looking forward to the results.

Progress will be updated each month in my column on the ChileFoundry.