Give the gift of Chilli

I struggled to choose a gift for a friend last Christmas. It seems my final choice was an actual success because it was a chilli growing kit for a man that not only loves chilli, he now loves chilli plants as well.
I think there were a few casualties on the way to chilli producing plants. Some of the seedlings were scorched in the sun in the spring. Slowly my friend managed to get the idea not over or under watering, etc.

Hmmm, pretty and yummy

It is annoying when you have been doing something and introduce someone else to it and they do better than you do. Especially after I have just dumped the spindly specimens I was growing into the compost bin.

 I took the above picture when I was visiting him for his 40th birthday at the beginning of November and despite the shaky camera work you can see that these are actually quite good looking plants. The chillis are yellow, green, red and purple. We celebrated his birthday weekend eating sliced raw chillies on slices of cheddar cheese. It is the perfect after pub nibble when you want something spicy.