Chilli farm thriving in Chorley

Chillies usually thrive in warmer exotic climes

A businessman is becoming hot property by nurturing 28 varieties of chillies - in rural Lancashire.

Richard Alker's passion for hot and spicy food - and a shortage of the chillies he wanted to cook with - prompted him to start the business.

He now grows 10,000 chillies at his "chilli farm" - Little Green Men - in the village of Adlington, in Chorley.

Joe's Long Cayenne, Zimbabwe Bird and Habanero Chocolate, are just three of the chillies grown on the farm.

Although they grow best in hotter climates, chillies can still be grown in cooler climes with the right conditions.

He said: "It started when I worked in Manchester in the mid 1990s. You couldn't get hot chillies to make food with.

"I started growing my own on my windowsill, amazingly it worked and I was hooked."