My first year of chillies (or growing anything really)

Hi, newcomer to growing veg here.I thought I would post somewhere on my first years experiences of growing chillies in the south of england. (someone who does a google search may find it usefull).

When I started to plan it I read books and loads of internet pages. I read to much and should not have bothered reading most of it unless things went wrong . Seems the less exotic ones are a bit like weeds I had no problem getting plenty of fruit from certain varieties.

I bought growing chillies by jason nickels and got a free little book of chillies when I ordered my seeds and bits from world of chillies.

I went a bit ott for my first attempt but in for a penny and all that.... I bought

1 x thermostatic propagator,1 x unheated propagator

Capillary matting,labels,chilli focus,min max thermostat.

2 x chilligrow planters

40mm jiffy pellets, 9cm pots,some cheap 5 and 10 litre pots from ebay, some of those florists buckets to make some self watering planters-http://www.thechilliking.com/diy-self-watering-pot/

Gardman plastic greenhouse and a chinese cheap knock off walk in from ebay.

Assorted pack of chilli seeds ( jalapeno,pimento de padron,thai hot,pusa jwala,ring of fire,lemon aji, serrano)

Then ordered 4 plants in case it all went wrong ( Kasmiri, bangalore torpedo, superhot thai, aji amarillo)               

Coconut coir, multipurpose compost,vermiculite.

The shopping list was my biggest problem tbh.I was never sure what I needed..... Thats why I listed it here.

What I did- Ignored all the soaking and fafffing around with the seeds. Just followed the jiffy pellet instructions and planted about 35 assorted seeds.(in case I had a lot of failures as I did not know what I would get) Put them in the unheated propagator and put them in the airing cupboard,(ejected all those useless towels and bedclothes).

Meanwhile I put a storage box on the bed in the spare room so I could balance the heated propogator on the window ledge and box so it was in full light and over the rad.

I got over 30 of those 35 to germinate in under 2 weeks in the airing cupboard. As they did I moved them into the spare room.I just sprayed them lightly every few days while they were in the pellets. The thermostatic propagator over the rad and in the light worked great. Kept them just right overnight and when we were at work with no heating on.

The window ledge is not south facing so they did get a bit leggy. With some more googling I read that when you repot the seedlings just bury them up to the bottom of the leaves. So I did that when they went into the 9cm pots.

Followed the-When there are 2 pairs of proper leaves pot them up advice. After a bit of googling I found that the first 2 it produces when it germinates are not real leaves. 50/50 coir and multipurpose compost in the 9cm pots.

Again followed the advice- Fed weekly with 50% dose of the chilli focus.

Well I planted the seeds the last week in jan, by early may the house looks like a bloody weed farm... There are chilli plants literally everywhere. Every window has its line of pots and they are now properly getting in the way.After that the 4 back up plants got delivered,with a cayenne thrown in for free. Just what I needed more chilli plants! I gave 7 away in the end.

3rd week in may I put up the 2 plastic greenhouses and make the planters,pot everything up into the final size pots,the home made planters and the chilligrows. 50/50 mix of coir and multipurpose with about 10% of the total mix is vermiculite,yes that makes 110%,but you know what I mean!

So as it is my first time I left 2 plan