Growing Chillis from Seed in the Caribbean?

[FOX]

Hi All,

I'm new to the forum and new to growing Chillis and would welcome any advise.

First off, I'm on a small Island in the Caribbean so obtaining specialist bits and pieces is going to be near on impossible so I'm gonna have to keep it simple.

I do however have some seeds to be starting with, basically, I have 10 Caribbean Red Hab seeds and 10 Thai Dragon Chilli seeds that I obtained before I came out here.

OK, my first question is basically when to start? Is there a 'growing season' I need to be aware of? The appt I'm currently in has pretty limited daylight, however I will be moving to a new appt in about a month with a south facing balcony that should get plenty of daylight. Should I wait?

Secondly, If i can't get hold of a propogator how else can I germinate my seeds (I'm thinking old water bottles maybe?)?

That's about it for the moment, any general advice will be much appreciated especially anything specific to growing in this part of the world.

I was intending to use this site as a guide http://www.thechileman.org/guide_beginner.php which is where I found out about this forum.

No doubt i'll have plenty more questions for you guys but I think this is enough to be getting on with

Cheers

FOX

 

[lennyk]

I live in Trinidad and growing peppers is no problem at all,
in fact the sun may be too hot at time outside in the direct
as the leaves will wilt a bit in the heat but catch back overnight

 

[Omri]

First of all, welcome to the forums.
Now about the peppers.
For germination you basically need heat, not too much and not too little.
So if it is insanely hot, keep the seeds in the 85F-89F/29C-31C range.
If it's colder, just keep them in a warm place.
You don't need that much heat for growing the already sprouted plant, but I guess you're pretty covered.
If it's gonna get (real) cold anytime soon, I would wait for the hot season to come back.
If it's hot all year around, again you're covered.

Take me for example, it's like 55F outside and you know what? I don't really care, I'm growing my plants indoors.
When it'll get hot and nice a couple of months from now, I'll take them outside.

I live in Trinidad and growing peppers is no problem at all,
in fact the sun may be too hot at time outside in the direct
as the leaves will wilt a bit in the heat but catch back overnight

That's why Trinidad is awesome.

 

[wordwiz]

Omri,

I was talking with a guy who runs a greenhouse yesterday and how best to sprout seeds - he recommended keeping the temps 65-70 degrees. I had the system set to 85 and after 10 days, no seeds had sprouted so I figure I might as well turn the temps down.

There not the same but tobacco plants do not need anything near 80 degrees to sprout. They come up in April when the soil temps are probably the upper 50s to very low 60s. So do tomato plants.

 

[Omri]

Well the Nagas I had exposed to higher temps sprouted faster.
Maybe it's not the same for ALL peppers, but for those kind of peppers, I guess it is.

 

[wordwiz]

I had a bunch of them sprout this summer when the temps were in triple digits! But I'm sure I didn't do it the right way. I had a bunch of seeds so I sowed about 35 of them in a large bowl of potting soil. I drenched, and mean drenched the soil and covered in with saran wrap. This was in the days when the temps were in the low 90s. They sat in the water/soil for probably three weeks and did nothing, so I removed the wrap. The temps were getting into the mid 90s by then. They sat for a couple more weeks and I decided they were not going to sprout. I needed some moist potting soil so I started spooning the edges out, including lots of water. Then it got hot, into the low 100s, and inside that room is was even hotter. Surprise, plants started popping up, one after another after another. I think the rate had to be close to 100 percent.

It seems like a crap shoot to me. If I could be like those tobacco growers - they sow 242 seeds and 235 of them sprout - I would be one happy grower!