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First Time Grower 2011

omega

omega

This is my first post so go easy on me. I wanted to update you guys on my very first attempt to grow peppers for the 2011 season. So far so good. I started germinating on Jan 29th with the following chillies all bought on eBay.
50 Red Savina Habs - Organzmo
20 Trinidad Scorpions - marjchrs9cnp
10 Trinidad 7 POTs - dragonfly183
10 Bhut Jolokias - karmalies0805

I have been reading the forums religiously before I started and decided I would try a few different techniques since I heard hot peppers are so hard to germinate. First, I tried the ziploc bag method with a damp paper towel using distilled water. I tried a couple of each pepper, and put them behind my LCD monitor which gave them a constant 85 degree temp. Next, I put a couple of each kind in pure mushroom compost filled Jiffy pots on top of a reptile heating pad giving them about 88 degree temp. Next, I tried pre-soaking a few in 10% hydrogen peroxide and distilled water and then transferring them to regular potting soil in a jiffy pot.

Out of all these methods, I had only 1 seed germinate using the ziploc bag method (Red Savina), 2 using pure compost and 80% with the pre-soaking in 10% hydrogen peroxide and regular potting soil (no fert). I was quite surprised by this and really thought the baggy methos would work, but hey it worked so I went with it for the rest of the seeds. Here's my progress so far. If anyone has any recommendations or advice, I could really use the help! I don't claim to know everything. I'm just a normal everyday chillihead. lol

Having trouble posting pictures. Here's the links
Indoor Setup
Closeup Red Savina Habanero
Seedlings
 
Welcome to THP, from SoCal. That's an impressive list you have, good luck on the germination. It's all good my friend.
 
Looks great, congratulations. I think Josh has a tutorial of sorts on the photo upload. Look for one of his threads or grow log.

Welcome Mike
 
Nice list and good luck. Buying seeds (for superhots especially) off of ebay or amazon generally isn't such a good idea though. A lot of people sell fakes, e.g. supposed to be bhut jolokia and turns out to be Caribbean red. Hopefully yours turn out to be what they say they are, but it's a bit of a gamble.
 
Have you tried using an 8oz deli plastic container w/cover method?

You just place 3 pieces of coffee filter paper on the bottom, moisten with water. You want to wet them without any standing water. Place seeds on top of filter paper and cover. Keep it at 85°F and in about a week "more or less" they start cranking. I have over 600 germinations during the past 14 days. It works!! :woohoo:

I am way over goal, now I need to figure out how am I going to handle the extra capacity … Holy S**t.


:welcome: from Vermont :dance:
 
Thanks guys! I appreciate the support! Avon, I know it was risky buying seeds off eBay, however if they turn out to be not what they say they are, they will get a bad review. I didn't know about THP until after I purchased them or I would have bought them on here. This is really a learning experience for me to see if I can actually pull this off. So far so good!

I actually make hot sauce and extracts that I sell which was just the beginning of my Chili addiction. I like everything hot now. My wife thinks I'm nuts!

BTW, I ordered some 15+ Trinidad 7-POT Douglah seeds yesterday from otpepper. I have never tried them, but I hear they are painful. He is sending me a sample as well. Can't wait to try it! I'm running out of room! lol
 
SuperHot said:
Have you tried using an 8oz deli plastic container w/cover method?

You just place 3 pieces of coffee filter paper on the bottom, moisten with water. You want to wet them without any standing water. Place seeds on top of filter paper and cover. Keep it at 85°F and in about a week "more or less" they start cranking. I have over 600 germinations during the past 14 days. It works!! :woohoo:

I am way over goal, now I need to figure out how am I going to handle the extra capacity … Holy S**t.


:welcome: from Vermont :dance:
Click to expand...

I will have to try that. I'm up for new ideas. Thanks!
 
omega said:
Thanks guys! I appreciate the support! Avon, I know it was risky buying seeds off eBay, however if they turn out to be not what they say they are, they will get a bad review. I didn't know about THP until after I purchased them or I would have bought them on here. This is really a learning experience for me to see if I can actually pull this off. So far so good!

I actually make hot sauce and extracts that I sell which was just the beginning of my Chili addiction. I like everything hot now. My wife thinks I'm nuts!

BTW, I ordered some 15+ Trinidad 7-POT Douglah seeds yesterday from otpepper. I have never tried them, but I hear they are painful. He is sending me a sample as well. Can't wait to try it! I'm running out of room! lol
Click to expand...


Super Super Hot!!
 
Welcome to THP omega, you couldn't have found a better site to help with everything chili. I have to agree with Avon about buying seeds on ebay. There is a good list of sites to purchase seeds from in this forum. Check it out the next time you're in the buying mood. What's even better though is if you stick around and become an active participant in the forums here. Come this fall after folks have harvested their peppers it's seed trading time.

Best of luck to you.
 
Avon Barksdale said:
Nice list and good luck. Buying seeds (for superhots especially) off of ebay or amazon generally isn't such a good idea though. A lot of people sell fakes, e.g. supposed to be bhut jolokia and turns out to be Caribbean red. Hopefully yours turn out to be what they say they are, but it's a bit of a gamble.
Click to expand...

I am a first time grower here too, and bought mine off eBay also, but I think I got lucky. I got them from Dave who is also a member of this forum. He sent me som of his Dragon Dust in with the seeds. Very hot stuff!

This forum rocks. People are definitely helpful.
 
The only ones I'm concerned with are the Bhuts since everyone and their mother's uncle are selling them since it's the record holder. I wouldn't think there would be many fakes with scorps, 7 POTs or Douglahs since 99% of the general public doesn't know what that is! I could be wrong. We'll see. I'll try to start a grow log and give updates.

I hope to suck in as much knowledge as I can from you guys. I've already learned a lot. Just today, I never knew the Infinity Chili was the official world record holder currently.. WTF??
 
omega said:
BTW, I ordered some 15+ Trinidad 7-POT Douglah seeds yesterday from otpepper. I have never tried them, but I hear they are painful. He is sending me a sample as well. Can't wait to try it! I'm running out of room! lol
Click to expand...

Have you checked out the stickied seed buying thread at the top of the growing forum? Lots of great and trusted places to buy, you may have all your seeds for this year but might be something to consider for the next year. Pepperlover, peppermania, The Hippy Seed Company, and Trade Winds Fruits are great places to buy seeds among others.

jessxcr said:
I am a first time grower here too, and bought mine off eBay also, but I think I got lucky. I got them from Dave who is also a member of this forum. He sent me som of his Dragon Dust in with the seeds. Very hot stuff!
Click to expand...

Yeah Dave/Asia's Garden is an exception for Amazon/ebay sellers. He seems like a good guy and sells true-growing seeds from most accounts. I haven't ordered from him personally but he gets good comments from people here.
 
Thanks avon! I will definitely check it out. I have access to 30' X 20' green house, so I may be buying more. Who knows.
 
I bought a few seeds off ebay aswell, before I found this forum, so I don't know what i'll get, I purchased, Chocolate Beauty, Fooled You Jalapeno, Filius Blue, Black Pearl, Long Slim Cayenne, and Peruvian White Hab. I already know the Filius Blue was true, but I killed it with overwatering... Anyways, good luck to you and your growing, and welcome to THP.
 
Welcome Omega! I am surprised by your results with the wet paper towel and plastic baggie germination experiment. My friend and I are growing 20+ very hot and super hot peppers this year and we used the wet paper towel and plastic baggie method for all of our seed germination and had very good results with it. How long did you let them go before you checked and made your final assessment? A lot of them actually took a while to germinate but in the end, we had very good results and a boat load of little seedlings now! Good luck with the ebay seeds. I too was taken in when the bhut jolokia gained the worlds hottest pepper title and purchsed seeds off eBay, none which germinated, then seedlings which turned out to be carribean reds instead. The worst thing about it though was by the time I knew that what I purchased was not Bhut Jolokia seelings, it was too late for me to leave negative feedback because you have a limited time after purchasing something on eBay to leave feedback. Good luck with everything!
 
Well, I tried the baggy method until all seeds molded and were growing green fuzz on them. Maybe a week later. I used distiller water, however there must have been pre-existing mold spores on them. I should have did another trial run after soaking in hydro peroxide and tested again but I didn't. I really have to say that pre-soaking the seeds really works and cut my germination time in half.
 
Omega, have a look at this thread.

http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/18353-never-give-up-on-seeds/page__p__389113__fromsearch__1#entry389113
 
millworkman said:
Omega, have a look at this thread.

http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/18353-never-give-up-on-seeds/page__p__389113__fromsearch__1#entry389113
Click to expand...

Just to add to this...I had some chocolate bhut jolokias that just wouldn't germinate. They had constant moist 85 degree soil using a heating pad and humidity dome and they just wouldn't come up. After about a month everything else in the minigreenhouse had long been sprouted and transplanted, so I took it from under my light to make room. I didn't want to completely give up on it, but it was wasting space under my light so I put it on top of my TV where it only stays about 70F and forgot about it for a week. A few days ago I checked it and there are 4 chocolate bhut sprouts in there now. I'm not sure exactly how long they took but I think it was about 5 weeks.
 
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