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Getting HOT peppers to sprout. HOW?

F

FlaHotPep

Ever since I found out about this so called 'Ghost pepper'...the Bhuts/Nagas...I have been bitten by the hot pepper bug. I now have so many varieties of seeds, it is unreal. Being in south Florida. I assumed that I could get these seeds to sprout in no time. What a joke! To make a long story short. I have found out that I CAN the 'difficult' hot pepper to sprout, especially the Nagas/Bhuts, in under a week,...THAT is unheard of ,so I am told. By using my AeroGrow garden! A surprise!

I have also put my trays of Jiffy peat pots filled with Jiffy soil less mix,and some with a nice light soil mix, around and on top of my 2 AeroGardens for the light, and I am getting lots of germination. the ones in the most light sprout in 3-7 days! And others are popping up all over. But I cant get anything to sprout outside in the sun and heat! I did decide to dig up my seeds, delicately, to see whats going on. Turns out that all my seeds are planted to deep. A whopping 1/4in deep! I now have them exposed to the light,and I am hoping that some will live and finish sprouting, and then I can put them outside to finish growing, then pot them up.

Are you suppose to plant pepper seeds on top of the soil??? I found nearly all my seeds had sprouted, but not been able to grow through the soil! How deep do you all plant your pepper seeds??

I have them all exposed now to the light from the AeroGarden, and I am keeping them inside. I am getting a 'seed sprouting tray' that is specially made to fit and work in the AeroGarden, it has 70 sprouting 'cells' in it. It is suppose to come next week. I am going to try to get nearly all the varieties I have to sprout in this thing. BUT I can't get anything to germinate outside. And peppers are so easy. A bell pepper I can get to sprout in a week no problem. But these 'exotic' ones are nearly impossible!

Ones like the Bhuts/Nagas, Habaneros, African Congo, Yellow Mushroom, Brazillian Starfish, etc, ...anything slightly 'exotic', and I cant get them to sprout,...unless it is under these inside fluoresant lights, in these AeroGardens. Now I have a big mess all on and around my formally clean AeroGardens!

Trying to get as much light as possible from the 2 bulbs in each garden, to every seed tray or pot I have on and around the AeroGardens. I do have 2 Bhut Jolokia plants growing in one of the AeroGarden seedplugs holes. They are so perfect, perfect color green, no bugs, no wind damage, etc. Now I have to decide to either remove it from the garden, and plant them in soil, and try to get them to grow outside and get fruit and get big plants!!! I hope! OR let them grow in the garden till they pass the lights and see if I get any of the ultimate HOT peppers! Or not. Anyone gone this route? And gotten peppers in the AeroGarden?

See next post!!! I'm on a roll!!:lol:
 
Everyone has their favourite way to germinate seeds.

The method I will be using for my upcoming season:

- Wet some coffee filters in either room temperature water or weak tea, fold coffee filter in half, and place seed/s in between the first 1/4 of coffee filter. Place this in plastic sandwich bag (some people call them baggies?), and put in a warm place, say on top of fridge, maybe on top of the desktop of your pc near the power supply if its left on 24/7.
- Check bag everyday, wetting with a fine mist if necessary if the coffee filter is drying out.
- Once tap root has emerged, I think move them into jiffy pellets, ensuring the tap root is facing downwards. I dont put the seed down very far, the jiffy pellet already have a small hole, i just lightly move the peat from the sides over the top of the seed
- Important to keep warm (27 - 29 degrees centigrade I believe?), light is not important until the seedling has emerged
- In a week or so, the seedling should emerge.

My first experience with trying to germinate seeds was about 10%, I did everything wrong, chose the wrong type of medium to germinate with, didn't keep the soil wet. After reading heaps of different websites and getting advice from others, I'm not working on 90+% germination.

Good luck!
 
I made my own hotplate made from an old metal plate from a coffee maker without the heating element, and under that I took two ceramic resisters (240 Ohms I belive) connected in series

Ones like the one in the upper right hand corner.
ceramic.jpg


I put thermal compound on the top part and attached it to the bottom of the metal plate, and applied pressure and super glue along all sides and when it dried I wired it up, placed it inside a plastic container and put another plastic container on the top with the bottom cut out so the guts were inside the bottom one and the metal plate was forming the bottom of the top container. I sealed it up with silicone rubber.

Powering it was 12 Volts from a PC Power supply connected to a 12hour timer.

Hotplate_Design.jpg


For the seeds I would take two or three square napkins stacked, cut them in half, then fold the two halfs in half like folding a single slice of bread to make a small sandwich. Then each half would contain a grid of Habanero seeds in the middle and closed like a book. I would keep this soaked with distilled water and put inside the container on the hotplate away from center.

One half had Orange Habaneros, the other Caribbean Red Habaneros, each labeld with perm marker.

The temps inside would stay at around 95F and was set to a timer of 12 hours.

The container was sealed with plastic wrap and rubber bands, I would spray inside every once and a while to keep it moist and sprinkle ground cinnamon on any mold that would form.

First week about two or three total sprouted (roots only).

One or two would follow each day, and after week two, germination explosion... Both folded napkin halfs were swolen with sprouts. 98% Germination.

Even the ones with long furry roots were easy to remove from the wet napkins... Worst case it would just tear some off with it.

I would then place the sprouted seedlings into their respective starter pots with general purpos potting soil (microwaved to the point of steaming the day before to sterilize the soil), so the seed head would be 1/3 an inch below the soil. I then put them inside a light box and seal the top with plastic wrap to prevent the soil from drying out.

Few days later the seed leaves popped out of the soil and put a smile on my face :D

My plants are very healthy now :)
 
i found that you have to have patience...the hottest seeds have taken the longest to germinate. i have orange habs that just began to sprout yesterday after about 3 weeks in the ground. i had all but given up on them. some others are similar in that it has taken them a long time, but eventually they have sprouted.
 
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