I've only kept two yellow Biquinho as overwinter plants and they're faring quite well, lots of growth since I brought them in and my radical treatment once again prevented aphids. Despite being a tiny fruit pepper, they are a rather long season variety. I'll probably start a few more plants of these in a couple months, but want to see if I can get an early (July?) crop of them this way. I preserved most of them in vinegar in the fridge, they make a great pizza topping, not to mention the vinegar they soak in tastes great in return!

I just started germinating 18 Sweet bell pepper seeds. I want to see if I can get a red pepper this year.... I always get green bell peppers but apparently they turn yellow, orange, red as they ripen and sweeten more. I think I'm going to start germinating some Scotch Bonnets and Chilies... I started a Scotch Bonnet in November but it isn't doing much and it only has 1 good leaf... the other 3 are tiny and appear to be deformed.... I should've planted more seeds to pick better seedlings lol.... Now I'm falling behind

I started some peppers yesterday. Using napkin/zip-bag method again - worked well last year. I put the zip bag inside a thick seedling tray and put that on a heating mat.

Started these sweets so far: Shishito, Fushimi, Jimmy Nardello, Tolli's sweet, Corno di Toro Rosso. Those are ones my wife wants. Will be adding more no doubt.

Still deciding on the hots. Hard to choose. Going to try some new varieties for us.

I plan to start mine next week when I get back from vacation. This will be my first year growing peppers (common hot and sweet varieties) and I am excited/nervous about how it will go. I already feel like I am behind...

If you guys don't mind sharing advice, I plan to start my seeds in one of those seed starting flats (either a jiffy "greenhouse" or simple 6 cells & seed starting mix) with a heat mat below. What kind of lighting should I supply? Does this sound like an acceptable approach? Some sources say to use a cover others say to not or the seeds could mold/rot. Any other tips?

Hi Sammers510,

For starting, you can certainly use a cover to keep the potting mix moist, but you'll want to remove it as soon as anything sprouts IMO. Make sure the mix does not dry out if you don't use one.

As for lighting, nothing needed until the first sign of life above ground. After this, unless you have a south-facing window with little obstruction, you could use a strong daylight CFL at first. I use six 48" daylight fluorescent T8 tubes myself. Keep the light no more than a couple of inches away from the tops if possible.

It's also a good idea to have a small fan on seedlings, both to strengthen them and to keep a good air circulation.

Good luck!

Isgen is right on with how I treat my seedlings. I would add however, that you will get better results by providing some heat to the seedlings. I use heat mats and set my thermostat which has the probe in the soil to 83 degrees. You will get quicker germination and seedling growth and likely better germination rates.

I see that heat mats are now available in walmart but you can just find a warm place to put them instead such as a TV cable box or other electronic that puts out a minimal amount of heat. Just be careful, because getting up over 85 can be hard on seedlings at best and lethal at worst. Bottom line is though, you can do just fine at normal room temps.

I also tend to keep the cover on my seedlings for a an extra day or two after the first seedling sprout to give time for the late comers to get going. Going any longer will risk mold and other problems for the seedlings.

I put my seeds in a glass of warm water for a few hours. After that, i transfer them to a paper towel and mist it well with a sprayer until it's completely wet. I transfer paper towel to a ziplock bag, zip it about 80%shut and place it under my TV receiver. Once the 2 green starter leaves completely grow out, I pull the seedling from paper towel and place it in a pot. Usually sweet peppers get to that state after 2weeks +/-. I'm curious so I end up opening the bag and checking them at the 1 week mark. I find this way to be easy and my seedling will have nice big roots from the paper towel. Just be careful pulling them off.... I recommend you mist the paper towel at the 1 week check and when you remove the seedling.

I've got 8 habanero and 4 ghost chili seedlings with their first set of true leaves (sowed on January 21). These are the first time I've collected pepper seeds from a previous crop. The plants were open pollinated and were very close together last year. I'm not too concerned if there's some crossing going on as this is mostly for fun.

This weekend I plan to sow about half of my planned hot peppers (Serrano, Cayenne Ring of Fire, Sugar Rush Peach, Yellow Hinkelhatz, Lemon Drop, Aji Charapita, more Habs, more Ghosts) as well as my ornamental Filius Blue. Also think I'll do a few of the other sweets/'regular' peppers in an effort to attempt topping the plants (Bell, Lunchbox, Cubenelle, Doux D'espagne, Corbaci, Banana, Poblano, Hungarian Wax, Jalepeno).

If you are not really stuck on specific varieties, sometimes it is fun to grow seeds that might be crosses. You never know what you will end up with except in your case, I can assure you that whatever it is, it will be HOT.

I normally don't start peppers until about March 10 but this year I am going to experiment with topping a few so I am going to start those this weekend. I'll start two each of Baron poblano, El Jefe jalapeno, Guajillo, Orange Blaze, and Escamillo. I'll only pot up one of each after about 3 or 4 weeks and then top them in early April before planting out around May 1. I bought a heat mat to use for the first time this year.

Kevin - what Jalapeno did you end up with...did you get some Mucho Nacho or Biker Billy?

Same here i start around early march in starter plugs on heat mat they germinate pretty fast. The zip lock ,moist tissue technique i have done for citrus n other tropical seeds like neem ,curryleaf.

My list for this year hot paper lantern habanero, scotch bonnet, ghost, meteor thai , bird eye, poblano, chile de arbol , bishops crown, big jim , anaheim, jalapeno, padron , shishito.

N will transplant to raised beds mid may.

I usually start pepper seeds around this time of year. I started out the first round about a week ago. Peach Hab, Mako Akokastrade, Trinidad Perfume, Fish, Santa Fe, Urfa Beiber, Bulgarian Carrot, Fresno, and Red Hot Cherry. In about a week I'l start Farmers Jalapeno, Heher Ozon Paprika, Costino Amarillo, and Black Hungarian.

Great selections everyone! I just started my longest season seeds this weekend, wiri wiri oval, wiri wiri round, condor's beak, tiger teeth, and guyana tragedy- love that name lol.

It's been absolutely frigid here for what seems like months, although the days are getting noticeably longer each day which is nice. Hard to believe my plants will ever survive outside at this point lol. I think late next month I will start the remainder of my pepper seeds.

I plan to put my 6'x5'x3' unheated greenhouse out and plant my seeds (especially peppers at this point), beginning on Tuesday.

I plan to grow a bunch of Neapolitan pepper plants, Aji Charapita, Randy Sine's Evil Jalapeno, Aji Omnicolor, Aji Dulce 1, and maybe others (like Lipstick, Feher Ozon, White Cloud, and Roumanian Rainbow—that last one in the ground again; I might try more of them in the ground, if I can—not because it did well there, because it didn't, but for the sake of acclimatization to see if it does well after being grown in the ground repeatedly).

I'm in SW Idaho.

Hey Shule, do you start the pepper seeds directly in the greenhouse? If so, must be nice not to have to harden them off. It can be a pain moving a bunch of containers and trays several times a day. Have a good season!

We are really kicking off now haha! My seeds are starting to sprout in my baggies, will transplant to starter this weekend. I think it is almost time to start my regular peppers too, I have a feeling we will have an early spring like the last 2 years.

Next project- reassemble my greenhouse door that exploded in a wind storm last year lol. A greenhouse without a door isn't too helpful around here in spring :).

I'll fight the itch to start my "regular" peppers for a bit if I can. Yeah, we might be getting an early spring, but here the weather is usually cool, grey and damp. I really got in the gardening mindset hard just this week, can't wait to do some more to advance the 2018 season!

We're having a streak of days above freezing lately. I'm thinking of taking out my Rocotos under my cold-frame on overcast days over 5°C already!

Throwing oil on the fire, I received my new seeds from Solana yesterday: Chantenay carrots, d'Avignon radishes, HHW peppers and Gold Currant mini-tomatoes. I'm really looking forward to see how that last one turns out.

Nice! We have finally warmed up a bit but still nowhere near outside time yet.

Right I forgot you were also into radishes- me too. I'm going to go for the daikons this year, my problem with radishes is that I always plant too much seed with the intention of thinning and then get behind on the thinning, so this year I will take more time to space seed better. I love Solana seeds she has great stuff!

I haven't grown your type of currants but I have grown Hawaiian currants and they are so cute all clustered on the vine! And sweet too. Great for entertaining, everyone loves them.

Maybe I will try biquinhos again, they are adorable too, I have the red and yellow seed. They are so tiny I got lazy harvesting them 2 years ago and the birds ate them once they got bitten by frost haha. Isn't that ridiculous? I spend months growing something and then let the birds get them??? Same thing with my cabbages last year, grew them for literally 9 months and then a moose chomped them all just as they were sweetening with the frost.

Radishes - I'll be trying to grow a few Daikon this spring, perhaps some long blacks as well. These grew well for me late in the summer, but were burrowed into by tiny worms. I might avoid these in the spring.

Despite their diminutive size, Biquinhos pack a ton of flavour. The harvest can indeed be time-consuming, but they come off the peduncle easily, at least mine did. I guess they have a lot of wild pepper genetics in them. I filled a 500ml jar from 3 plants sharing a 3 gallon container, but I'll try to give them more root-space this year, especially the overwintered plants.

Moose eating your cabbage - only in Canada! :) Too bad still! :(

Yeah, I plant my seeds in trays with cells and cups, put them directly in the unheated greenhouse right after planting (in March or so), and then transplant them in the ground in May or so (no longer in the greenhouse; I only use the greenhouse for seed-starting). I open more ventilation as it gets warmer (but I almost always have at least one small side vent open, since seeds need ventilation to sprout in a greenhouse the small size of mine). This gradually lets in more natural light and lets out more humidity. I don't harden them off besides that.

I'll be honest, though: I've never been too into hardening stuff off. I think I tried it twice. The first time, it really hurt the plants. The second time, I made sure to put them under heavy shade only, and that worked out a lot better.

For most of my life (without a greenhouse), I didn't harden plants off at all, and that worked out pretty well for me. I think putting them under the shade of our apricot tree may have helped a little that one year, but the plants could have been fine without it. True, survival rates may not be 100% without hardening off, but most survive it, in my experience.

However, I think using a milk jug (without a cap) for a humidity dome helps plants to harden off post-transplant without having done so pre-transplant, unless it's too hot for a humidity dome. You can widen the ventilation hole at the top as it gets warmer to be safe there. Any parts of the plant that grow out of the hole are hardened. The jug also protects from frost.

Plants are more susceptible to transplant shock earlier in the spring, in my experience (and less susceptible in July, even though it's a lot hotter); however, they benefit from being more mature when transplanted if they're planted later in the spring (if they're too young transplanted too late, they may not grow as large and vigorous as they should).

When transplanting, especially if you don't use a humidity dome, it can be very important (at some times of the year, at least) to do it either after the sun goes down or before the sun comes up. Transplants are sensitive to sun (especially during the transplant). They can easily be killed or stunted if there's too much sun during the transplant.

A good supply of potassium can reduce transplant shock. Excess nitrogen can be bad for transplants.

We've got a clay to clay loam type soil in the garden. I start my plants in worm castings with a little peat moss mixed in (which I buy from someone every year). I used to use regular seed-starting mix (I liked Nature's Brand Seedling Mix, which I amended with basalt rockdust, 10-10-10 fertilizer, and after the plants got to a size, I'd add potassium sulfate), or whatever soil I had. With the worm castings, I haven't amended them, but I do fertilize with monopotassium phosphate after a while, and that works out well. Phosphorus is important for cold, developing plants.

Peppers are the last crop to sprout in the greenhouse, it seems. If we didn't have spider mites indoors (they really like indoor peppers), I'd probably start more pepper plants indoors in January or February to get them to maturity faster. That's probably too early to start peppers in our greenhouse, though (since it's not heated, and since a vent needs to be open, a cold breeze might kill plants on occasion if it commonly gets below 27° F. still).

Anyway, I can't speak for anyone else's garden or climate, but that's how things have seemed here.

Giving our indoor pepper wood ash seems to make it more tolerant of spider mites. A friend gave me a Candlelight pepper plant last spring to grow indoors (and I still have it indoors). Maybe I'll try some new ones with it and see how they do.

Interesting.... I was thinking of buying a small greenhouse. Anyways, mine are grown indoors. This chili was started sometime in December

IMO, it's also important to remove super old leaves (if your plant has plenty of leaves) before or soon after the transplant. They can stunt plants a bit to a lot. I'm not sure about peppers (they may need all the leaves they can get), but I'd definitely recommend removing excess old leaves on watermelon (at least if you start them earlier than people recommend). It seems to me that old leaves are less adaptable to new light, and the new light isn't very good for the plants while they have those old leaves, which are used to artificial lights, less UV rays, or some such.

More mature transplants with less leaves seem to be less prone to transplant shock caused by the sun; however, they may not be as strong if they don't have enough leaves. So, it's probably important to leave some newer ones on, at least.

Less mature plants that naturally have fewer leaves probably shouldn't be transplanted until they reach a certain size/age. They should keep all their leaves.

Peppers I planted a couple weeks ago have all popped except the peach hab. Started the last 4 kinds yesterday.

TheyCallMeDave,

Are you planning to keep both pepper plants? If you're not, it's fine to keep them together and eventually use scissors to snip one of them off some days to a couple weeks after the transplant. A clump of plants is one way to help ensure survival of at least one (don't worry about them being smaller; the plant you save will grow to size quickly after you cull the others). I've done that. They're also easier to water without hurting them as a clump, since they support each other. This reminds me of that Click Clack Moo show with the clump of sheep, heh, heh.

If you do plan to keep both, and eventually divide them, it's probably more ideal to have them divided sooner than later (but disturbing the roots can have consequences; peppers have sensitive roots).

If you want to keep both and don't want to divide them at all, I'm not sure how that will work out. The plants might compete too much at that distance; they might be fine.

Ok, so feeling inspired by the thread... I did my first re-potting of some seedlings this afternoon. Hot Cherry, Urfa, Fresno, and Bulgarian Carrot.
I container grow all my peppers, so I fuss a bit with up-potting them while they are little. I'll share my fussy here. I start out with 3-5 seeds per 3 inch pot. When the first two leaves are fully out and strong and the bud of the next set is showing up, I re-pot each seedling into it's own 3 inch pot.
I use a lightly moistened but still fairly dry pro potting mix with a little granulated fertilizer mixed in. Fill up the new pots fairly flush full to the top. Take two fingers and divot that about 3/4 down the pot. Then carefully tip out the seedling pot and lift out the seedlings. Gently lower in the roots and about half the stem tamping in to support.
Once I got the whole tray done, I spray the tops of the pots well with a mister bottle. Gentle enough to wash the debris off the seedlings and dampen down the top of the soil to settle it. Then I bottom water the tray real well so all the pots can become fully hydrated.

I have a similar technique beesneeds. I also use cowpots for some long season peppers and squash before transplanting into big pots.

Here’s the moose if anyone wants to see.

He wasn’t interested in the Swiss chard or celery, just the cabbages and dry beans. Go figure lol.

Too bad for the cabbage, but gotta love that picture!

Hey guys, just showing some progress from my peppers. I started this chili in late December and it's starting to flower.

Those are looking pretty good, keep doing what you've been doing!

I planted the last of mine early this morning, and the rest about two weeks ago, I think. You can see the grow-list on my tradelist link.

Peppers for my MS charity fundraiser in the greenhouse . First night out from under the warmth of inside !

Sounds like a good cause. Nice plants. :)

Yah, I wish I had waited even later to plant mine. I just looked at my little guys and realize it is already time to pot up to some 4" pots. I still have two months to go before they go outside.

Oh, I’ve got a few more peppers than expected. I was planning on about 15-18 plants, and have 25.

Lost a couple seedlings during first transplants, but that’s ok. And I ended up starting up another pot with the last 8 Farmers Jalapeño the other day- the one seedling that came up in the first pot isn’t too healthy looking and had a fail with it last year.

Everrything else is looking good. Got 2-3 of everything. About half of them are still in their 3x3 pots, half were big enough to report up into solo cups yesterday.

I always grow about 50% more of each type of pepper than I expect to keep. However, I never have that much mortality and wind up with way more peppers than I need and I just can't force myself to cull any of them out. Then I start running out of room really fast as I am already.

Heh, I did seed heavy... I was only planning on keeping 1-2 each of most of the peppers, so only planted 3-4 seeds per pot. Figured I’d end up keeping a few extra anyway, I always seem to. I usually grow 2-3 plants of each variety every year, just growing a few more varieties than usual this year.

Its ok, I got the space and materials for the extra, and I’ll probably be happier for the extra peppers.

Looking good everybody! I finally got the rest of my peppers started yesterday:

aji escabiche

criolla de cocina

paradiscum alaku sarga szentes

manganji

cubanelle

etuida

ancho

sweet chocolate

italian sweet

oda

poivron doe hill

binquinho red

shishito

peri peri

lemon drop

arroz con pollo

spicy slice jalapeno

tam jalapeno

early jalapeno

senger farm jalapeno

Quite the list! How many plants total are you planning on? Any of these that are of particular interest to you?

I found an Aloha pepper in my grocery store today. Don't know much about them... They look like a bell pepper except they're half red and half yellowish/orange and the colours are in stripes.... I took some seeds too plant. Anyone know anything about Aloha Peppers?

Here's a picture

Nope (I don't know anything about the Aloha pepper beyond what you posted), but I've read that they're marketing striped peppers to try to get more children to enjoy them. I wonder if they got the striped gene from the Fish pepper.

I rather like Fish peppers- I have a pair of healthy thriving ones right now. One of them has really nice variegation in the leaves, the other you almost can't tell it's a Fish it is so plain so far. The Aloha is lovely.

I had one of my Urfa Biber peppers suddenly drop dead of waisting over a 24 hour. Not sure why, it's rather unusual I lose a plant at this point like that. And it's the only one of the 11 in that transplant batch that suddenly up and keeled over. All the rest of them are thriving, including the Fish peppers. The biggest of the Bulgarian Carrot already has little bud nugs starting to show up- those might become full on blooms before transplanting sometime in the next week or so depending on the weather.

I'm especially happy that my one lone Farmers Jalapeno has finally started to grow nice. The second batch of seed I started hasn't even bothered to pop yet. I'm rather unhappy about this. I got the seed in winter 2016 from Tradewinds and the seed trial with them I did last year failed too.

The crossing and genetic engineering on peppers is out of hand. It is getting to the point that there are 20 variations of just about every pepper species. Think how many jalapeno varieties you can find on the seed stands. Same for Cayenne and bell peppers. Now they are crossed, hybridized to the point that they are creating completely new and distinct varieties. And to make matters worse, half of the peppers are being renamed and relabeled when they are just a plain variety. It is impossible to keep track of peppers and their varieties any longer.

That pepper above does look like it has the classic bell pepper shape, but also the coloring and markings of a Fish pepper.

I think it's pretty cool to hybridize peppers. I'd do it if I had time, space, money, etc etc. Anyways, I did some googles searches and found out the Aloha pepper is also known as the Striped pepper or Holland Striped pepper.... because it was created in Holland.

Apparently it was an accidental hybridization. The farmer who manages the green house said he was walking down the pepper aisle one day and saw these peppers and was shocked so he took seeds from the pepper and grew some more. Don't know how credible the story is but I believed it.

Peppers are said to have been domesticated thousands of years ago. I would be surprised if there weren't a lot of kinds, especially with how easily they cross. I do believe there are more tomatoes out there than peppers, though (20k+), but I think that may change.

Looking into the history of heirloom peppers, I found this article, which clarifies a lot of stuff about the history, different species and such: https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/heirloom-pepper-varieties-zewz1309zpit

I don't endorse 100% of the stuff the article says (especially after it finishes talking about the history), but it's a great article. For instance, it lets us know that people used to classify species much differently. So, there's some disparity between modern books and old books on what is what.

There are probably thousands of breeds of C. annuum and C. chinense peppers, and probably hundreds of breeds of C. baccatum peppers (just a guesstimate based on all those I've read about). I don't know of very many C. frutescens or C. pubescens peppers, however, but there are at least a handful of each. There may be more, though. C. pubescens was the first species domesticated, I believe; so, I am surprised there aren't more breeds of it.

it's abundantly evident that the aloha pepper has genes from this parent:

Never heard of the Big Stick Pepper. Seems it only grows on dead wood.

That Aloha pepper does look cool how was the taste, sweet?

Isgen, I manly grow the peppers that interest me for cooking. I still have tons of seasoning peppers and mash from last year so I am not doing too many of those. I know most people find jals boring but we eat tons of them, in esox's cold canned recipe so I like to grow them and also make tons of jal poppers and freeze them for the winter.

The asian types I like to dry and make powder for soups and cooking etc.

For basic cooking I like sweet frying peppers so the ones that I have chosen for this year I have all grown before and did really well in my climate. I think the cubanelle is my only new variety I am growing this year. Most I will only grow one of, some up to 2 per variety. Yes it gets crazy!

Tonight is the last predicted night under 40... so tomorrow I finally get to pot up the peppers into their containers to put out in the solarium for a week or two to establish before they go outside. The solarium is usually a good 10 degrees warmer than overnight temps.

Unfortunately, I used up the last 8 seed of the Farmers jalapeno in a second planting round and none of them sprouted. I only got 1 out of the first 5 seed I planted. Last year I tried growing them and that seed batch failed too. I think I got a bum seed packet. I got it from Tradewinds along with a few other peppers, and all the rest of the seed from them germinated great last year and this year. Also from them I'm trying Trinidad Perfume again- last years peppers were so flaming hot I wasn't sure if the packet was mis-labeled or if it was due to plant stress, so I'm trying them again this year. And I do mean flaming- I was expecting something a bit milder than a jalapeno or hot cherry, and instead they were about as hot as my peach habaneros.

Anywho. I had a cat-strophe, so now I'm down to 24 plants total. Still a few more than my original plans of 15-18, but not too many. I have the pots and potting soil for it, and the space- though it maxes out my container space.