THIS month Cultivate is running a #harvestchallenge for people to make just one meal each week out of local ingredients.

And if you think that means a dull dish of potatoes, parsnips and kale – think again.

Our Eynsham-based suppliers, The Oxfordshire Chilli Garden, have been hard at work harvesting their new season fresh chilli crop and we now have a huge variety on offer at all our weekly Cultivate stops and through our online click and collect service.

If you enjoy making curries or chutneys, their Indian Guntur Sannam chillies are for you.

These fiery fellas are one of India’s most popular varieties: they’re perfect in curries, chutneys and other spicy Indian dishes, but also make a great all-rounder for any dish that needs a good lick of heat.

This chilli is hot and pungent with the average of 10,000 – 25,000 Scoville heat units (by comparison, a Jalapeño is somewhere between 3,500 and 10,000).

Fancy some Mexican-style salsa? Then you might want to try the Habanero chillies.

These guys are very hot, rated 100,000–350,000 on the Scoville scale, so can really pack a punch.

Combined with some of our locally-grown tomatoes, onions and garlic they’ll make a fantastic sauce for dipping or topping tortillas.

The chilli garden's Scotch bonnets, also known as bonney peppers or Caribbean red peppers and named for their resemblance to a tam o' shanter hat, are an essential ingredient in West Indian curries and jerk dishes.

They also make a great chilli sauce – just combine with vinegar, sugar, salt, onion and garlic, boil down to a thick liquid, cool and then bottle.

If you are after something more unique and that will really torch those tastebuds then I’d recommend trying some of the Tropical Heat chillies.

These are The Oxfordshire Chilli Garden’s own hybrid, half scotch bonnet and half Naga, one of the hottest known chilli peppers.

They estimated these chillies are 500,000 Scoville Heat Units and have an intense fruity flavour – if you can taste it.

So, even though the weather might be cooling down it doesn’t mean your locally-sourced meals have to.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of our customers creations on our Facebook page and finding out if they can stand the heat.