Depending on the variety, tomato seeds germinate the fastest for me. I am not a fan of Jiffy products. Once this bag is gone I will not use it again. The seed starter dries out too quickly.

Peppers generally take longer to germinate. I have had some seeds come up after one month. They are coming up faster for me now that I am using a heat mat.

For inside sowing, broccoli and cantaloupes can come up in 44 to 52 hours. Peppers will take 10 to 15 days...about always.

Peppers take forever, sometimes two weeks!

Agreed, broccoli, cabbage and lettuce, then tomato, then pepper. It's interesting with hybrid peppers how, out of say 20 seeds planted and held at the same conditions, there can be a difference of more that a 2 week window when they all germinate and then emerge.

I have yet to see that phenomenon in other veggies.

Abe,

This year for the first time I started my pepper and eggplant seeds in moist coffee filters in ziplock bags. Moisten the filter, put the seeds between the paper, and put these in a ziplock bag. Place the bag straight onto one of the cheap heat mats you can buy. It will tend to dry out on the side facing the mat, so you need to turn it over every other day and occasionally spray some more water in. Works great: 5-8 days to germinate pepper and eggplant seeds with very few failures. Once roots appear, use a toothpick and transfer to some kind of seed starter medium, being careful not to damage the root. The young plants will be up in a day or two.

Pretty gurl
If you not a fan of jiffy don't try park seed dome. It is a joke that sponge first is very expensive second the seeds grow leggy and weak. I think jiffy is the lesser of the two evils, I use jiffy cups not the smallest one but the next size and as soon as i have the first true leaves i slit the bottom of the cup and transplant the whole cup into the next size adding some soil .I let them grow 5 to 6 inches before I put them in the garden I plant the whole cup in the garden by this way no root disturbance during the first or second transplant.
My problem is why my seedlings are leggy and weak even I water and fertilize. They said bright lights I provide bright lights as soon as I see some germination what I am thinking now is the wind provide exercise for these plants to growstrong. On my current patch I will have a van with soft air blow and see the results. I wish I know how the commercial growers have these seedlings strong and thick. I am putting support for those leggy weak seedlings to say the least it is funny. My GF thinks I lost my mind. She wants to eat them because they look yummy.

Add another vote for starting peppers on a coffee filter. Last year I had a heck of a time getting mine to germinate in pots, so I tried a batch on paper towel just to see what would happen, and it was so much faster that I just went that route directly this year.

I don't have a heat mat, but I do have a water heater in my upstairs bathroom. I fold a coffee filter in quarters with the seeds inside, wet it, and place it in a small canning jar (could also use a ziplock). I then put the jar on the top of the water heater to keep it warm.

This year I started my peppers on March 10 and all had sprouted by March 16. I put each sprout in its own pot under my grow lights at that point and as of today, March 21, 6 of the 7 have broken the surface. By far the most success I've ever had with peppers! It's taken me weeks to get to this point when I started them in pots.

Bottom heat and keeping the soil moist until germination seem to be the trick for most.

I use recycled flats that hold 12 square pint containers to germinate my veggies. Had horrible time with the first batch which were just under grow lights with tomatoes and herbs which germinated quickly. First batch only saw a few peppers and eggplants out of several dozen after nearly a month. So I removed the germinated cells, re-wetted the soil, placed them in a clear plastic bag to hold in humidity and then set them elevated on cups over my house in-floor heating vents. During the winter the heat runs periodically and it's quite warm over the vents. Now after more than a month I'm getting more germination out of the first batch of what I thought were duds. They have to be checked daily for signs of life and those cells are then removed and placed under growl ights.

I started a second batch of peppers and eggplant using this method and keeping the soil moist and all the peppers and most of the eggplants were up by two weeks. I also move them outside in the sun on a warm day since the heat won't be running.

I am attaching a link to a discussion here on the forums from last year. It revolutionized my seed starting techniques. Read it all the way down to the bottom and do watch the NC tomatoman You Tube!

Here is a link that might be useful: Seed starting discussion

Re: post above. I had trouble getting it to post...

This year, I sowed entire packets of seeds into four inch pots. I labelled each pot and then put them all into clear Rubbermaid boxes turned upside down. These boxes are vastly superior to the "seed domes" that are sold each spring. They last almost indefinitely. I then put the boxes under flourescent lights and into a small bathroom where I run a space heater to keep the room at 75 to 80 degrees. (If you do this, look for low boxes so you can get the lights as close to the seeds as possible.)
I had tomato germination in less than 48 hours. Eggplants and peppers took about a week.
Once the seedlings had their first set of true leaves, I emptied each 4 inch pot and separated the plants a la NC tomato man, putting each seedling into a cell or a 4 inch pot. I buried the stems in the soil all the way up to the first set of true leaves for EVERYTHING not just for tomatoes. then I moved the trays down to my basement and under flourescent lights. It stays about 60 to 65 degrees down there.
I used Gardeners Supply germinating mix for the first time this year and I was impressed. For years I had germinated seeds in Miracle Gro Potting mix because the only kind I had used was Jiffy. GS was vastly superior to either one. I agree with the above poster that peat pots are an invitation to disaster. Try styrofoam cups and punch a hole in the bottom. They are way better IMO.
I am happy to report that all 20+ flats of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, zinnias, pentas, vincas, angelonia, begonias, helenium, and heliopsis are doing very well.
All we need now is WARM weather!