you will find many different growing techniques on this forum but most of them work...you just have to find the best one that works for you...
planting seeds for germination: determine when the night time temperatues stay above 50F (10C)...that is your plant out date...then for Annuum species, plant them about 6 weeks before your plant out date and for chinense species, you can plant them 8-10 weeks before the plantout date...the reason for the differential between annuum and chinense is chinense are slower growers than annuums...
seed starting medium...I have settled in on a very light weight soil-less mixture called Hoffmans Seed Starting Mix (Jiffy Seed Starting mix is my second choice)...you need a light weight seed starting medium to allow the roots to grow unrestricted...
trays to start seeds in...I use 72 cell seed starting trays, fill them up with the soil-less mixture...gently press the medium down and refill tray to top of cells then tamp it down again...you don't want to compress it too much, just a little because the soil-less mixture is so light...
planting seeds - as was stated above about 1 cm is a good depth...I use 1/2" as a guideline...if you plant too shallow, the seed husk will stick to the cotyledons on the plants more often than not because they have less soil thus less friction to pull the husk off...
water/fertilize - this is really a bone of contention between growers, however, I use a solution of Botanicare ProGrow, Botanicare Liquid Karma, and Superthrive for the first month then drop the superthrive but still use the progrow and liquid karma until plantout...
there are two things I think are the most critical bits of information for seed germination - moisture and temperature - you want the medium to be moist but not wet and a constant temperature of 30C seems to work best for me...note...the lower the temperature, the longer to germination for the seeds...
once the seeds have germinated, they need light immediately - a large variety of options are available for lighting from standard fluorescent bulbs, to compact flourescents, to metal halides, to high pressure sodiums, to light emitting diodes...BUT, the main thing you need to know about raising seedlings is that vegetative growth uses more blue spectrum light than red (and just the opposite for flowering fruiting where more of a red spectrum is required)...
exercise the stems and pour the light to the seedlings to prevent legginess...the more light the faster the plants will grow, however they need exercise so run a fan on them 30 minutes twice a day and make sure they sway in the breeze...no fan?...brush your hand across the tops several times a day (always make sure you have washed and dried your hands before touching the plants)
once the seedlings have started and are probably 5-7.5 cm (~ 2.5-3") tall, you will probably see roots starting to come out of the seed starting tray cells bottoms....this is telling you it is time to transplant into a larger container...I have found the healthiest largest plants are from seed starting tray to 3" container, to 6" container, to 2 gallon container to 5 or 7 gallon containers...(I am assuming you are going to be growing in containers here)...as a general rule, the larger the final container, the larger the root ball, the larger the plant and the more fruit the plant produces....I stop at 5 or 7 gallon containers because of the number of plants I grow each year (~300)
do a little reading using the search function on this website and you will find almost anything you want to know abour growing hot peppers...
one warning...be very watchful of aphids/spider mites, they can appear from nowhere and if you get an infestation, you will be fighting them for months...
good luck with your growing efforts...dang, I didn't mean to write a book...sorry for rambling...
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