seeds When do you start your annuum seeds?

[President Trump]

I have never been good at timing these things.
I will be planting out on May 11th. I was thinking about starting my seeds on Feb. 16th.
I was figuring about 2 weeks for germination, 8 weeks under the lights and then 2 more weeks for hardening off. 
I am using four 4 ft. fluorescent T8 lights so I do not want the plants to get too tall. I'd like to have them around the 8 inch (20 cm) when I begin hardening them off. 
Do you think that I am starting them too early?

 

[KevinH]

Started mine last week end some folks start in Dec. and plant out in mid May.

 

[President Trump]

Are you talking about your chinense seeds or annuum?

 

[KevinH]

I start all my pepper plants in Feb..I will start my girls garden end of next month.

 

[CAPCOM]

It all depends on your growing conditions, the space you have available, and your growing zone. I dont know the temps you are germinating with but Annuums should germ in a few days under good conditions. as far as the plant getting too tall, you always have the option of cutting them back.
I see you are in Kentucky so your last possible frost date should be around April 10th-15th. by annuums I will venture to assume you mean the typical Jalapenos,Serranos and Anaheims. generally speaking starting them 8 weeks before you intend to harden them off would be good. weather permitting, they will take off after acclimation. Again, if you got the room for 12" plants then by all means start them earlier. You will have more pods earlier by doing so.

 

[Spicymon]

Started my Chinense a couple weeks ago and planted half of the annuums today.   I am seeing if I can push my annuums up even earlier this year with the hope that May is warm this year and a greenhouse attachment on at least one of the raised beds will pay off.  I have normally started annuums beginning of March with good luck and big harvests.  Since I only put half the seeds down today I may start another batch in March and see the difference at transplant time!  In this part of the Midwest it always seems a crapshoot.  If it's not the temperatures in May it's severe storms, hail, etc.   

 

[filmost]

I finished starting my chiles last Sunday, which mostly consisted of Annuum for this last batch. Plant out in mid April. So I think any time between now and beginning of March you should be good. You can always top them if you need/want to. That is my plan with my plants anyway.

 

[beerbreath81]

all seeds get started at the same time in this house  call me crazy

 

[President Trump]

Thank you all for the advice. For some reason I didn't think about topping them if they get too tall.

 

[deadmongoose]

Started my Chinense a couple weeks ago and planted half of the annuums today.   I am seeing if I can push my annuums up even earlier this year with the hope that May is warm this year and a greenhouse attachment on at least one of the raised beds will pay off.  I have normally started annuums beginning of March with good luck and big harvests.  Since I only put half the seeds down today I may start another batch in March and see the difference at transplant time!  In this part of the Midwest it always seems a crapshoot.  If it's not the temperatures in May it's severe storms, hail, etc.   

 
I was able to start planting the last weekend in April last year, here in KC. It got warm really early, this year I started a little earlier than last due to some of my plants not being quite big enough to go out. My seeds this year got started January 16th.

 

[boostdemon]

I started all mine back in early Dec. I will probably prune them all back to their first set of true leaves in another month.