I'm responding to add my current experiences with PJ's here. I don't mean for any of this to bash, but better inform others based on my experiences and what I've learned this year. This past year was my first year growing from seed. Previous years I only had a few nursery bought plants. Sometime in 2019 the pepper bug got me, and hit me hard. Thus 2019-2020 season was all about learning, growing inside mid winter and transplanting outside. I didn't spend a lot of time researching vendors. My own arrogance saw a flash looking website, high prices, and lots of information and dove right in. I spend a few hundred dollars on seeds. I was extremely meticulous on labeling and keeping track of everything. I have daily temperature/humidity logs, watering logs, germination logs; from the day I planted through the day I ended the season.
I found the germination rate was very low in comparison to other vendors, and my own seeds yielded from my 2018 nursery habs. Between all the pepper seeds, I had in the 50-60% range averaged out. This includes peppers I had amazing, and those I had absolutely 0%. I found my melrose, a red hab, scotch bonnet, green bell were not true to form; not even a similar variety. On 2 packets of seeds for jalapeno & serrano, I had absolutely 0% germination. I reached out to support and they confirmed my suspicions, that was a known bad batch of seeds. They did replace, and I had better success with the replacement; but why not pull all your customers with that known bad batch & reach out to them proactively. My first set of red hab's was black-ish moldy. I gave them a shot and had no luck germinating, they replaced and of the plants I kept, 1 turned out to be true, other turned out to be some kind of thai/birds eye. My reapers were not true (from their seeds). Some were similar, but others were very habanero/ghost looking and the heat was definitely not there. My chocolate habs were bad seeds. I only got 1 plant of the 5 seeds I used to germinate. My peter peppers were nothing like the actual true-to-form shape. They were definitely crossed somewhere because it resembled a weird looking jalapeno with some slight shaping to it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with what I accomplished & results obtained for the first year growing from seed. Their customer support is great, they were always willing to help more like sending replacement seeds. The issue is....if at 1st you don't succeed try try again....isnt possible 6 months later when you find out you've been growing the wrong type of plant. I'm not happy that I let the flashy site, and high prices convince me that it was the best option without looking around. For the newer growers, take the time to read, ask questions, don't just jump in and buy. Seeds are not created equal!
I did buy seeds from sandia, off reddit users, my own collected previously, rusted garden, and a few other sources that I had far better success with germination and being true-to-form. Once the plant is growing it's on me to keep it alive and grow well. That I can't blame a company for as it' within my control. Bad germinating seeds (taken from unripe/overripe peppers), wrong pepper seeds or cross breeds I can, that I can as it is out of my control.
For anyone reading this, do your research. I leave you with this....You wouldn't trust a fancy infomercial on tv to give you expensive medical advice, don't just jump head first because it looks good.
If you simply want seeds, they have seeds, and you may get some success, but it may come at a cost of risking germination rates & ending up with different crossbreed plants than you want.
I found the germination rate was very low in comparison to other vendors, and my own seeds yielded from my 2018 nursery habs. Between all the pepper seeds, I had in the 50-60% range averaged out. This includes peppers I had amazing, and those I had absolutely 0%. I found my melrose, a red hab, scotch bonnet, green bell were not true to form; not even a similar variety. On 2 packets of seeds for jalapeno & serrano, I had absolutely 0% germination. I reached out to support and they confirmed my suspicions, that was a known bad batch of seeds. They did replace, and I had better success with the replacement; but why not pull all your customers with that known bad batch & reach out to them proactively. My first set of red hab's was black-ish moldy. I gave them a shot and had no luck germinating, they replaced and of the plants I kept, 1 turned out to be true, other turned out to be some kind of thai/birds eye. My reapers were not true (from their seeds). Some were similar, but others were very habanero/ghost looking and the heat was definitely not there. My chocolate habs were bad seeds. I only got 1 plant of the 5 seeds I used to germinate. My peter peppers were nothing like the actual true-to-form shape. They were definitely crossed somewhere because it resembled a weird looking jalapeno with some slight shaping to it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with what I accomplished & results obtained for the first year growing from seed. Their customer support is great, they were always willing to help more like sending replacement seeds. The issue is....if at 1st you don't succeed try try again....isnt possible 6 months later when you find out you've been growing the wrong type of plant. I'm not happy that I let the flashy site, and high prices convince me that it was the best option without looking around. For the newer growers, take the time to read, ask questions, don't just jump in and buy. Seeds are not created equal!
I did buy seeds from sandia, off reddit users, my own collected previously, rusted garden, and a few other sources that I had far better success with germination and being true-to-form. Once the plant is growing it's on me to keep it alive and grow well. That I can't blame a company for as it' within my control. Bad germinating seeds (taken from unripe/overripe peppers), wrong pepper seeds or cross breeds I can, that I can as it is out of my control.
For anyone reading this, do your research. I leave you with this....You wouldn't trust a fancy infomercial on tv to give you expensive medical advice, don't just jump head first because it looks good.
If you simply want seeds, they have seeds, and you may get some success, but it may come at a cost of risking germination rates & ending up with different crossbreed plants than you want.
