I plant that many in each container so that i get at least one per container. I decided to skip the small peat starter kit method. I went straight to the 3" starter pots. Then after a while (probably another week or so or when they start getting true leaves) I will decide which is the strongest looking in each container and I will cull the rest. I will end up with one per container and I will keep 20-30% more containers of plants than I plan to end up with in case a couple die along the way. I can always give away the the extras. I built in "unpreventable loss" all along the growing process. But I am not going to have much loss at the sprouting stage this year. Last year I planted 4 or 5 bhut seeds in a single 4" container and didn't have the heart to just keep one so when three popped up, I carefully dug out two and moved them to seperate containers. I would suggest doing this early like around the time they are getting their first true leaves. If you wait, the roots get too big and inter-twined. But this year, I wont be transferring any. I planted at least three containers of each variety I want to grow. Of those, I will probably wind up with just one or maybe two. The others I will give away if they make it. I basically planted three times the number of containers that I want to wind up with for each variety. For example, I want about 4 Sweet Banana pepper plants so I planted 12. Bruce

Either weather and or watering variables. A lot of people have plants that look like that this year, and last year too for that matter (rainy, cool spring weather). There's only a remote chance that it's *slight* herbicide damage. But peppers recover from herbicide damage better than tomatoes do btw. Either way the plant looks good enough to grow out of it. - Steve This post was edited by sjetski on Thu, May 30, 13 at 22:40

Rhizo-1, yes, I too love experiments. But granted these are not serious experiments, just fun things to do for people who enjoy the process. It's fun to play around with organics I feel! You might as well make things fun while waiting. I expected tons and tons of BS to overwinter since I didn't get blackspot until the rainy fall and I thought hmmm, since this is my second year of rose-growing in my garden I expected an onslaught because I didn't clean up my BS ridden leaves until March 1st 2010, and never was any sulfur applied to the soil either plus I have tons of rotting composting annuals in my soil. But so far everything looks great! I still FORGOT THE CORNMEAL! lol! We'll see, not an ounce of powdery mildew or BS yet. But just wait until I get the onslaught of fall rains, lol! AnnTN I definitely agree that true experiments involve very tight control groups. Everyone has different soils and different roses so this can tremendously impact the effectiveness of the experiments. The only "accurate" experiments I've ever tried was doing a test group of 6 transplanted baby lavenders. Each of those lavenders was placed in the exact same soil and were of identical sizes and came from the exact same organics grocery store. I fed 1/2 of those transplanted lavenders with B1 vitamin and the other 1/2 with Gardenville sea tea. I quickly concluded that B1 vitamin didn't do a whit for my baby lavender-they remained tiny for two weeks, whereas the sea tea fed lavender doubled in size. Hence I concluded that B1 vitamin was a bunch of bogus in terms of "helping with transplant shock" or being a plant nutrient. But again these organic experiments are just for fun and for curiosity's sake. Maureen, fantastic idea! A Foliage Award, I love it!. Let's add this foliage award for 2010...I expect to be the last-in-place, lol! Also the Foliage Award gives more motivation and gives visual "proof" of one's experiment. O.K. here is how I would describe my soil...heavy clumpy clay. My climate is hot in the summer 85-100 degrees in August, winters used to be mild with only 3 snow days, but not this year! Record-breaking snows and cold. Spring has been very reasonable in terms of rain, lots of clear skies so that is why I am guessing there is no blackspot or powdery mildew yet (last year my full-sun roses remained BS-free for Spring and Summer only because my roses are 1st year roses). Two of my newly planted roses receive shade, but there will be 4 total with shade. In the backyard there will be full sun for half of the day during summers, when fall comes they will be in partial shade because the direction of the sun will shift and the shade growing roses will actually increase in sunlight just a little bit. Next I will categorize the health of my vulnerable hybrid teas versus my resistant OGRs separately so that we don't confuse issues. Unfortunately the OGRs will experience their 1st year of growing so that there is no comparison between past performance and new performance. My goal is to remain BS free during the fall rains, FAT CHANCE, but at least I can entertain myself, hee-hee!

Spots develop on plant leaves for all sorts of reasons and 9 times out of 10 it is just some sort of environmental damage that poses no threat to the plant. In other words, no plant has all perfect leaves. That said the only one of your photos that would concern me is the second one that is so very dark green with yellow-whiteish spots. It might be mildew. But if that is the only leaf on the plant showing that symptom then I doubt it is. But the dark green color - if shared with other leaves too - is indicative of over-fertilization. Feeding MG weekly can easily lead to over-fertilization, especially if used full strength and especially with peppers which do not tolerate excess nitrogen well at all. Based on the photos all I can suggest is that you remove the damaged leaves from the plant and cut back on the feedings to no more often than monthly or dilute the MG to 1/4 strength when using it. Then just monitor the plant for any further developments. Dave