Start These Chili Peppers on Your Windowsill in Winter – 8 Easy-Grow Varieties From Mild to Oh-My!
Now’s the time to sow a few seeds for a compact pot of fiery flavor come summer.
Chili pepper plants are a fun way to spice up January, and there are lots of compact varieties that fit perfectly on a sunny kitchen windowsill. Start your seeds indoors now and you’ll be harvesting your chilies from July through October – and just wait till you’ve tried a burger with a relish made of homegrown peppers roasted on the barbecue!
While you need to start growing chili peppers early, you shouldn't move them outside until the weather is reliably warm from April onwards (check your planting zone first), or if it’s a dwarf variety, keep it on the windowsill for handy pickings. The fruits come in all sorts of shapes and tones, many growing upright, so this little firecracker of a crop is ornamental as well as edible, making this a handsome houseplant or pretty patio pot.
What's Good For Indoor Growing?
It’s important to choose a dwarf or compact cultivar (all our recommendations fit the bill) so the plant stays small enough to be happy and healthy on the windowsill until the weather warms up. And, even if you decide to move your plant outside for the summer, it’ll still be petite enough to bring back indoors to overwinter for more chilies next year.
Have a look at the heat output when you’re selecting your seeds. The chemical capsaicin is the chili's heat source, measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU). The world’s hottest chili, Pepper X, averages a scorching 2.69 million SHU and peaks at over 3 million SHU! But the beauty of growing your own means you can choose a heat level tailored to your tastebuds, then refine the ferocity of fire by harvesting the chilies at a variety of stages: pick them before they're ripe for a milder dose of capsaicin, or wait til they're fully mature to experience the full kick.
How Hot Do You Like Your Chilies?
A mild chili that’s every bit as tasty as its hotter counterparts, Biquinho scores 500–1,000 SHU. It grows to 24” so is best moved into a patio pot in summer, but as it takes up to 120 days to fruit, it’s a favourite to start on a windowsill.
Serrano is an heirloom variety with a smoky flavor as well as a pleasant 10,000 SHU of heat, though you can pick the unripened green chilies for a milder taste. This grows to 24” so will be happier transplanted to a patio pot come late spring.
These upright-growing 1” chilies start off purple but ripen through orange to a cherry red, making Aurora Dwarf a super-pretty plant. With a final height of 10-12”, it’s a good bet for indoor growing with fruit averaging 30,000-50,000 SHU.
Ornamental as well as edible, this dwarf plant produces unusual chillies that morph from a light blue tone to a darker purple as they ripen to a Scoville score of 30,000-50,000 SHU. Growing to 10” tall, it won’t take up too much space on your sill.
This compact plant only grows to 12” though it’s got a bushy habit, and brings abundant 1” round chilies that have a tangy flavour and a score of 30,000–60,000 SHU. It’s quick to fruit, too, for an early summer harvest.
A compact plant that does well in a container, bright red Bird's Eye chili peppers are fiery as well as flavorful with a fresh, sharp punch that makes them feel even hotter than their 50,000–100,000 SHU rating.
This dwarf plant is as attractive as it is abundant, smothered in 1”-long fruit, often with both red and green peppers at the same time. Be warned – though petite, these chillies pack a punch at 50,000–100,000 SHU with a pungent flavor.
Phew! A close relative of the Scotch Bonnet, this heirloom variety boasts searing heat of 100,000–350,000 SHU and a delicious smoky taste. Growing to 24”, it’ll prefer to be moved into a patio pot for the summer.
The Best Windowsill Set-Up
Chili pepper seeds need warmth and moisture to germinate, so use pots with humidity domes such as these Nursery Pots from Amazon, or make your own by recycling yoghurt pots and securing clear plastic bags around their rims with elastic bands.
Sow two or three seeds per pot in seed-sowing compost such as this Seed Starter from Amazon, or make your own DIY mix. Cover the seeds with a light scatter of compost, water lightly, and pop on the humidity domes. To keep the seeds warm enough to germinate, stand the pots on a heat mat like this Seedling Heat Mat from Amazon or put them in the airing cupboard.
Once seedlings pop their heads above the compost, remove the humidity domes and keep watered on a sunny, warm windowsill. When they’re around 2” tall, it’s time to move your babies to their own pots of multipurpose compost and, when they begin to flower, feed weekly with a liquid tomato plant feed such as this Organic Tomato & Vegetable Food from Amazon.
The Trick to an Abundant Crop
Even a compact chili variety can produce over a hundred fruits on one plant – as long as you heed this easy-do rule: super-consistent watering. Aim to keep the compost at a similar moisture level, and the plant will be able to smoothly move from flower to fruit without any stress. If you spot any flowers falling off, that's your alarm call to improve your watering routine!
Freshly-germinated seedlings are easily toppled by the torrent from a watering can, but this little gadget moistens with a far gentler shower.
A mature chili gets pretty dense with fruit so it can be tricky to water the compost rather than douse the plant – a long-spout can is the solution.
If you're often away from home for a few days then a self-watering pot makes it simple to retain consistent moisture levels.
