Why growing chillis has become a hot prospect for Langholm

Lovingly planted, the seed trays are gently warmed beneath heat lamps in spare bedrooms, bathrooms and living room floors. By night, the lamplight creeps under cracks in curtains and blinds, bringing a purple haze to windows the length and breadth of Langholm.

Soon the Naga Viper, Big Caramel Mama and the eye-watering Carolina Reaper will sprout, set to be transplanted into trays for the polytunnel or greenhouses, pots on windowsills, doorsteps, patios and back gardens, or trailing in hanging baskets outside cafes and shops. Indeed, almost every spare space that the chilli-mad people of Langholm can find.

In years gone by, the talk in the Borders village 20 miles south of Hawick was more to do with the local mills, the rugby scores and plans for the annual Common Riding. For the past two years, however, the hottest topic around has been chillies.

It is now growing season in Langholm, dubbed the “chilliest place in Scotland” thanks to a very unlikely love affair with the fiery fruit.

And Langholm Chilli Club – membership currently standing at more than 1,000 – is abuzz with talk of deliveries of strangely named seedlings, newly acquired exotic varieties, how quickly Golden Cayenne might germinate (quite slowly in one case), and how fast the Moruga Scorpion sprouted (just five days).

As the weeks wear on, the plants will mature. Star-shaped flowers – yellow, orange, red and purple – will blossom and the first plump chilli fruits start to appear.

“In October and November when everything is turning brown, that is often when the plants are at their brightest,” says Mark Hodgson, Langholm’s chilli king who is responsible for igniting the town’s obsession with the fiery plants.

“I have 1,400 in the house,” he adds, matter of fact. “They are lovely plants.”

Most folks might think one is quite enough, but Langholm’s chilli fans show no sign of ending their red-hot love affair soon. Instead, it transpires that plans are under way to take Langholm’s chilli obsession to a new level.

With plants currently growing in around half of Langholm’s homes, there are moves to take over a patch of land from Dumfries and Galloway Council. If given the go-ahead, a community interest company called Langholm Digs for Victory will set about creating Scotland’s first chilli community garden.

As well as giving the town’s chilli obsessives extra space to indulge in their habit, the garden could turn what started as a quirky hobby into a community enterprise.

“We’re getting calls from restaurant chains asking for Carolina Reapers but we can’t supply them all just now,” adds Hodgson. “Some of the varieties we are growing are quite rare, and there are lots of people out there who have a use for these chillies.

“While no-one will become a millionaire from this, any income can pay for the site and might even create one or two jobs.”

Perhaps in true Langholm style of doing things a bit differently, focus for what could be the nation’s chilli ground zero is an old dump.

“Years ago, people used to dump their old rubbish at a site on the edge of town,” explains Hodgson, 40, an IT specialist. “Then it became a football field, but it was never used.

“We’d like to buy that from the council and turn it into a community garden with a big polytunnel at the centre.”

The vision goes further than just a polytunnel for some chilli plants. There are hopes of creating raised beds using logs from local forestry operations and soil from a previous allotment site.

Alongside the chilli plants could be a mushroom farm and a smokehouse which would make use of shot pheasants from local estates, beehives and a brew shed. The spot hugs the Wauchope Water and woods, a haven for kingfishers, red squirrels, goshawks and black grouse – offering growers and visitors a place to sit and socialise.

Last week, the vision took a step further when Langholm Chilli Club’s application for charitable status was approved, paving the way for the village just east of Dumfries to press ahead with its plans.

But before the community garden comes Langholm Chilli Festival, planned for the end of August and which will see chilli-eating competitions, chilli talks, displays and exhibitions, and a bid to set a world record for the most chilli plants in one room – the target is currently set at 400 varieties.

It is a very long way from 2017 when Hodgson asked a Langholm neighbour to keep an eye on his beloved chilli seedlings while he headed to America for work.

“I came back and this guy who I’d given them to told me he had killed them all. He kept up the story for ages and I believed him. Then one day he brought out this whole bag of chillies.”

Not only had the seedlings survived, but they had also sparked conversations and interest across the village. As the next sowing season dawned, Hodgson found himself offering planting advice and tips to around 20 people keen to try their hand at growing chillies.

Their numbers have now grown to include around 600 people from the village’s 2,300 population, six schools have children planting chillies, while the idea of a Scottish village’s obsession with chillies has piqued interest around the world.

Today, Langholm Chilli Club has members from Pitlochry and Coatbridge to the USA, Canada and even Australia. Recently someone turned up in the village from Philadelphia to drop off a bag of seeds at the local post office, while closer to home in Hawick, an offshoot group of around 20 growers has emerged.

Among them is Roddy McLaren, a 54-year-old retired computer engineer whose wife, Maggie, has given up seeing her spare bedroom without rows of propagators – bathed in the purple glow of the heat lamps.

“I’ve got over 100 varieties in the house under the lights,” he says. “There are around 300 plants in the spare bedroom in trays that are four metres long.

“It started as a chance conversation, but you get into it. It’s the varieties, the different colours, different sizes. No two are the same.

“I could grow tomatoes,” he adds, “but there are only about a dozen tomato varieties and there are thousands of varieties of chillies.”

He specialises in rare and unusual varieties, and the names in his pots hint at what’s to come: Basket of Fire, Cherry Bomb, Chocolate Devil’s Tongue, Prairie Fire and, one of the hottest, Carolina Reaper.

Once the fruits have matured, he plans to use them to cook up sauces, dips, jellies and jams, or to be smoked, dried and ground into chilli powder.

So far, he’s created 28 different varieties of chilli powder, while his sauces and recipes have attracted interest from a local brewery keen to match his fiery concoctions with their beers.

Upstairs in the spare bedroom, the heat lamps glow for 16 hours a day – Roddy has worked out it costs around £40 a month.

In terms of a hobby, it’s the equivalent of what some might pay for a gym membership that’s rarely used.

But as the chillies continue to thrive in his Hawick home, something has to give. And, it seems, all roads lead to Scotland’s chilli capital.

“My wife loves it, but I am encroaching on more and more of the house with my propagators,” adds McLaren. “So, we’re looking for a new house. In Langholm.”