Adam Stacey admits he designs for Lucifer himself. He sells Devil’s Pleasure and spends his working days surrounded by scorpions and ghosts ‒ two types of chillis. He is one of the UK’s growing breed of chilli farmers.
Stacey is a third-generation vegetable and salad crop grower at his family’s small holding in Quedgeley, Gloucestershire. The idea for his Glos Chilli Farm (www.gloschillies.co.uk) occurred to him in a pub.
“A mouthful of chilli jam changed everything. With the help of a degree in environmental studies and the advice of my uncle Geoff, I grew a crop of 400 plants. Now we make everything from pickled scorpion and ghost chillies to jams, jellies, meat rubs and sauces,” he says.
“As a fan of spicy food, I’m no stranger to eating chillies but I had a lot to learn about growing them. We use harvested rainwater, feed the soil with clover, blood fish and bone and don’t use any pesticides or herbicides. Ladybirds help us control pests. We also provide homes for solitary bees to help with pollination.”
Chillies have many health benefits. The Victorians gargled with chilli and used it to relieve arthritis. Chillies are also a versatile and healthy fruit, rich in vitamins A, C, E and B complex plus potassium, iron and magnesium. A habanero chilli contains 357 per cent more vitamin C than an orange.
National Chili Day is marked in February. One of the most unusual ways to celebrate the day is at Cherwood Nurseries (www.chilliranch.co.uk) in Chawston, Bedfordshire.
Joanne and Shaun Plumb offer afternoon tea with finger sandwiches, tortilla chips and a chilli-tasting experience. Their shop stocks Inferno Hot Sauce and Blazing Bramley Chutney.
Salvatore Genovese turned his family farm’s greenhouses over to chillies, making Blunham in Bedfordshire the chilli-growing capital of England. His favourite chilli is Red Serenade.
Chillies are a versatile and healthy fruit
Dartmoor Chilli Farm (www.dartmoorchillifarm.com) in Ashburton grows Bolivian Rainbows, Paper Lantern and Fairy Lights as well as the Carolina Reaper and Dorset Naga (capiscum chinensis) developed by the Sea Spring seeds nursery in West Bexington, Dorchester. One advertising poster proclaims the farm “sells evil vials of pain”.
Former IT man Phil Palmer runs the award-winning nursery as a micro-business with his wife Katy, an ex-florist.
“I grew chillies on my windowsill at university. In our first season, we grew 10 varieties which rose to over a 100. We are a very green enterprise,” Palmer notes.
In Wigtown, in southwest Scotland, Sheena Horner’s Galloway Chillies (http://gallowaychillies.co.uk) sells homemade chilli and brussel sprout chutney.
Many chillies are grown in the UK – from Apache and Hungarian Soft Wax to Ring of Fire and Trinidad’s Moruga Scorpion.
Chillies can be grown both indoors and outdoors and it is a relatively simple process. They are pretty robust plants, provided that they are protected from the elements. However, wide temperature fluctuations can stop the plants from fruiting.
Most successful commercial chilli farms, like South Devon of Kingsbridge (www.southdevonchillifarm.co.uk), started with one polytunnel. This is a structure, usually semi-circular, square or elongated in shape, which is typically made from steel and covered in polythene and acts as a greenhouse. The enterprise started selling its products at farmers’ markets. It now employs a staff of 17.
Its first product was a hot apple chilli jelly but they have increased their product range over the years. They now oak-smoke Devon-grown chillies and make orange, dark chilli and ‘extreme’ chocolate.
Mike Smith, from Denbighshire, Wales, accidentally grew his super-hot Dragon’s Breath chilli in collaboration with scientists from Nottingham Trent University, who believe that oil from the chilli could act as an alternative anaesthetic for those allergic to conventional drugs.
In a 17th-century tithe barn in Upton Cheyney in the Cotswolds, the Duck and Hawkins families, in association with the nearby Dawkins Brewery, make Holy Mole Chocolate Stout, while Essex’s Broxbourne Brewery makes Scotch Bonnet Cyder.
John Walters’s English Spirit Distillery (www.englishspirit.uk), based in Cornwall and Essex, makes a chocolate chilli liqueur. Arbikie Distillery (www.arbikie.com/) in Arbroath, Scotland, makes its chilli vodka with three types of potatoes and chipotle chillies.
The Cornish Chilli Co. (cornishchillicompany.co.uk) in Blissoe, near Truro, stocks Gargoyle, Hell Fire and Hell’s Mouth, as well as Barricuda Rum and Coconut, Red Snapper Vodka and grapefruit, Piranha (tequila and lime) sauces and a Hummingbird dipping sauce. Its website also gives recipes for chilli cheesecake, chilli ice cream and chilli popcorn.
The UK is experiencing a heatwave. There are now more chilli farms than ever before.