So here's my dilema ....

I was all done for the seedlings for the seasons. I have about 90 pepper plants started for the season with about 40 different varieties. My buddy owns a farm and asked me for about 6 varieties of any kind. He germinated his and thought he would give me the seeds back. He did give me back three six inch pots with every seed in them gerrminated and all about 2.inches tall. So no I have another 100 plus plants but I have to take each one out of the pots and repot. I do not have enough room in the house for another 100 or so peppers. I was wondering if there is any easier way to seperate them. Do I pull from the top or tap the bottom till the pots shake loose the whole pile. Any ideas or help would be appreciated.
 
 
Thanks too all,
Lexx
 
http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/ag198/Jacks1362/2Plants_zpsp1decxz8.jpg
 
 
Here is a pic of 2 of the pots.
 
 

Quite a few seedlings in each one of those pots.I would think it would be best and easiest to just pop the whole mass out of the pot and separate seedlings.

take the whole thing out of the pot, shake out as much dirt as possible, put it in a big bowl of water and separate carefully.

Thank you both for the input.

juanitos said:

take the whole thing out of the pot, shake out as much dirt as possible, put it in a big bowl of water and separate carefully.

Click to expand...

I frequently use a gentle streem of water to help coax off a lot of the soil granules that otherwise weld adjacent rootballs. It makes for less of a "taffy-pull" feel to separating seedlings, and less shearing stress against young roots' vascular tissue.

I keep the water temperature about 65°F for the tapwater i play into the bowl, over the rootball (for its first rinse) -- and for the florist's sprayottle, but i don't think it's too crucial... above 60°F, certainly. I think a temp of 65-75°F for the first few days would be a good safe range in soil temperature.
Premoisten potting soil, water in immediately (65°-70°F), and maybe mist the foliage each morning for 2 days after, or keep the humidity high for that time.

I don't recall doing this specifically for peppers, but i have taken this approach with many annuals. If somebody more, uh, seasoned in pepper culture (Juanitos comes to mind), says that this is a bad approach for peppers, disregard my advice. I know it's a bad approach to basil because our area is endemic for a basil-killing fungus that spreads rapidly under high humidity... this may be the best method i've got going for seedlings that are close together like that. I found it really minimizes transplant shock.

I would say it's a bad idea to germinate multiple seeds together unless you plan on growing them out in the same pot. You risk damaging the roots when you have to wash all of the dirt off and separate them for transplant. I discourage this practice. Try to replicate nature. It's smarter than we are when it comes to these things. But if you must separate them, the above advice will get you there.

Ditto what Phil says.  When growing a new variety where seeds cost as much as a dollar a pop, i put one seed per cell / pot.  When it is something I have already grown and have plenty of seeds for, I put three but do not separate.  Instead, I cull the smallest that pop up so I do not disturb the roots of the largest by transplanting.

sheet !  the rubies cube of pepper plants !