Variety the spice of life for man in the hot seat of chilli growing

Some 3,500 varieties are growing out there and the hottest is so fierce the Indian army have just started using it in grenades. It's called the Bhut Jokolia and Nigel Parker grows it. That's a pretty decent effort since its home territory is Assam and he's on a small specialised nursery just north of York.

Nigel slides open the door of one of his polytunnels to reveal rows of healthy, immaculate plants. At first glance it's all leaves. Peer beneath the canopy and there they lurk, hundreds of them – green, red, orange-and-green, round, pointy, fleshy fat monsters and the Yellow Bumpy whose name suggests fun not fierceness.

Another that also looks innocuous is palest yellow and smaller than a fingernail. Size isn't everything. This is the White Habanero which will go off like a bomb in your mouth. Picking them is not a problem. Chillies are inert until you break their skin. After that, look out. Wear gloves and don't put you finger up your nose – although it will clear your sinuses if you do.

People like to scare themselves, or boast, about chilli heat. That's a pity really, since there is much more to them than macho posing over a plate of late-night vindaloo. Chillies give depth and subtle nuancing to the flavour of a dish if you know what you are doing. Most of us don't.

Nigel is one of the finalists in the Growers category for the Yorkshire Post Taste Yorkshire Awards this month and he will be also competing for our Readers Award during the York Food and Drink Festival. He set up his micro business, Yorkshire Chillies, four years ago. You don't get more micro than this. He grows chilli plants to sell earlier in the year and now he's at full-stretch harvesting them. He also does the packaging, driving, the distribution and the selling. He even bought a laser printer and makes the labels. Everything here suggests attention to detail. He found special bags with tiny holes, designed for warm patisseries, into which he packs the chillies so they can breathe when they are on the shop shelves.

These tasks completed, he's back in the polytunnel harvesting – sometimes at one in the morning – with a cat aged 20 for sole company. Nigel lives a mile or two away in Haxby and to become a nurseryman was his ambition. He studied at Pershore College in Worcestershire and then became his own boss. He bought where he is now in 1989 and grew herbs. "I eventually decided it was not viable and packed it in for two years. Friends pressurised me into growing again. I'm a plantsman. This chilli pod thing was secondary. Now it is becoming more important."

This is chilli year number four. "I wasn't a fan before growing them. It's massive on the Continent, in Britain people are having a go

but most are nervous of them. They don't realise there are so many types – even chefs who you'd expect to know more. I've now got a loyal customer base. Saltburn Farmers Market is especially good – they love their chillies there."

Nigel is especially keen on Pimiento de Padron, good for tapas. Padron, a town in the north west of Spain, has a fiesta devoted to it. Small and green, it's the fastest of fast food. Throw a few in into a pan, fry briefly in olive oil with black pepper and sea salt, turn out onto a plate, sprinkle over more black pepper and sea salt and enjoy. It even comes with it own handy handle. Here's a tip. Never cut off a chilli stem when cooking. It collapses the structure.

Nigel picks twice a day every day seven days a week between July and September. One bed of 84 plants can produce ten kilograms of chillies a week.

Why doesn't he get some help? "I don't want to over-expand – you lose the fun of it." The cat's future however looks secure. The local mice have developed a taste for chillies.

It's the chemical capsaicin which causes the heat. It's found not so much in the seeds as in the pithy white flesh, or placenta.

The mildest part of a chilli is the pointy end, if there is one. The heat is graded by the Scoville Scale – the more Scoville units, the hotter the chilli.

One of the better known varieties, Jalapeno, scores a modest 5-8,000 units. It's grown widely in America where it's usually the variety of choice for popular "how-many-chillies-can-you-eat-in-a-minute" competitions. One of Nigel's favourites is the Cherry Bomb. Split one lengthways, stuff it with cheese, insert a roasted almond and bake in the oven for 10 minutes and eat holding the stem. "It gives you a nice hit," he says.

Cherry Bombs are one of the 25 varieties he has in production. In the spring he'll have 40 types of chilli plants to sell.

The world centre is at New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute. Last month was a dud for sunshine in North Yorkshire and some of Nigel's chillies simply stopped growing for a time.

But he's trying different approaches in his four polytunnels and he seems to know each of his 700 plants individually. The ground here is unyielding clay, but the plants do well in it when started off in compost, later they put down roots into the sub-base.

The polytunnels are not ideal. There are problems with warm air distribution and too much humidity. Glasshouses would be preferable.

At Dutch super-nurseries, Nigel has spotted little trolleys which effortlessly zip a picker up and down the rows of plants. Something like that may be in the offing if he expands, which he hopes to do next year.

He is growing about 40 Bhut Jokolia plants which in its native Assam is also known as the Ghost Chilli. He expects to get about 50 off each plant. How hot is it? Scotch Bonnet, which many reckon as pretty hot stuff, is rated at 200,000 Scoville units.

The White Habanero is 350,000 units. The Bhut Jokolia comfortably

tops that with between 850,000 and one million Scoville Units.

Nigel says when he goes to farmers' markets he keeps his stash of them under the counter.

"You get a group of lads coming up and saying, 'Have you any of those world's hottest for my mate?'"

But apart from playing a part in male bragging rituals and military grenades, what use is a Bhut Jokolia in the kitchen?

"It makes a fantastic sauce. You don't need many."

Yorkshire Chillies: Tel: 01904 760908. www.thechillishop.co.uk