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    Oh - for scale, the self-sprouted habaneros are living in six-fluid-ounce yogurt cups, without the yogurt, of course.  My Black Pearls and Purple Cayennes are now living in full-size storebrand Solo Cup knockoffs, but the blurry red pots near the youngest habaneros are shot glass-sized Solo...

    Also, sixteen of the self-sprouted habaneros are still alive and have some little true leaves!             Yeah, these ones need transplanting soon, too...     I also relearned, to my shame and my plants' detriment, not to pull off seed coats with my fingernails.  I'm not good at it.  I...

    Update - one of my probable Purple Cayennes has flower buds!         This plant has leaves as dark as my Black Pearls', which is why I'm not entirely sure that I labeled its pot correctly, but if it doesn't drop the flowers, I'll find out soon!  I am both ridiculously excited about this and...

    ...I shouldn't jump up and down so early.  I should also never try to remove seed coats myself unless the seedling will die otherwise.     I killed at least one of the seedlings by panicking and pulling off its seed coat too early with my fingernails, taking off the cotyledons along with it...

  Very nicely done so far, and good luck to you and your plants!   If the plants keep looking healthy and there's no chance of them freezing, I'd say you may not even have to take off the flowers and fruit to get decent leaf growth over the winter; maybe give them some extra food and minerals...

    VICTORY!     I can vouch for the seeds' cold-hardiness now, because one of them sprouted a root about half a week ago; two more had little roots by yesterday; and the other three had tiny roots by the time I planted them earlier today!  They're in shot glass-sized disposable cups with holes...

  Ah, sorry, clarification - scale bugs are often on the stems, not really the undersides of leaves, and I usually find aphids on the tops of leaves, but I didn't see any in your pictures, so the undersides are the next place to check.

  Oof.  I am sorry, and good luck to you and your plants!  I don't know about the black spots - maybe a disease? maybe not much to worry about? try gently wiping them with rubbing alcohol to find out if they're lesions on the stem itself or some kind of surface residue/sooty mold - but my plants...

    Thank you both!  I can vouch for habanero seeds' ability to germinate without drying out whatsoever, at least - we've had a rainy past month or so, and I just had some seeds sprout inside of an habanero fruit, before I even removed it from the plant.  That's probably not a great survival...

    This is my second grow log of the year, because my over-a-year-old bhut jolokia - which is now a beautifully straggly small bush taking up a few square feet of patio sunlight - finally decided to stop sullenly shedding flowers and produced one ripe fruit with six seeds in it.  My friend...

Huh. Some of my peppers are exploding (okay, the fruit are just splitting open) - is that because it's so damp here, or should I be worried?

    Now that I've had a chance to take stock of my patio more thoroughly, and take pictures - update!     One Black Pearl and both scorpion seedlings died while I was away; on the other hand, I have four surviving Black Pearls and all nine Purple Cayennes whom I transplanted right before I left...

    Somewhat ridiculously belatedly - thank you both so much!  And, now that I'm back from a month-long trip, I'm very glad to be able to say that you're right about the leaves, and my plants have survived long enough to show that!     When I left, my part of Florida was in a nasty drought, so I...

    We are in full-on drought conditions now.  Another two scorpion chiles sprouted in the past week, but even though I've soaked the seedling tray quite often - about every day or day and a half - both seem to have died before even shedding their seed coats, and I water so frequently because...

    ...I'm definitely still learning about plant care, usually at the expense of my plants...     Late yesterday evening, I came home to find the sprouted Purple Cayennes holding their cotyledons more-or-less vertical with the upper sides together - maybe because of lack of light? - and worried...

    !!!  I suppose you could, but that seems hard on the plants, unless they really have more than enough leaves to spare...  Also, mine have enough insects trying to eat their leaves occasionally; I think adding a leaf-eating mammal to their list of enemies would be too much.

    All of the Purple Cayennes and Black Pearls are now in a seed-starter tray, as of two days ago, actually - one seed or seedling in each cell - and just experienced their first rain!  That was an oversight on my part; I soaked them all earlier yesterday evening and didn't consider checking...