wordwiz said:
Pam,
I'm not sure anyone except my immediate family has seen the set-up, except for the pictures I've posted. :shocked
What surprised me was the suggestion that three sets of leaves are enough. Perhaps for those who believe that as long as the top of the roots are in dirt and having lots of stem showing, as opposed to planting to almost the bottom leaves, that might work. IME, if those plants get a beating rain - not unusual in May, the heart will be so close to the ground it will be covered in mud.
Nonsense, I've planted at three sets of leaves before and the plants have done fine. They're in more danger from cut worms and the mighty paw of Canis lumbercus then anything else, and they'd have to be far larger than that before they're safe from either of those hazards.
Oh course it's nicer when they're bigger, but there are a whole lot of people out there who are more likely to kill their plants by keeping them inside then going ahead and moving them outside when they're on the small side. Perhaps since you're keeping your operation secret from everyone but your family, you don't get the wailing phone calls I do.
Yeah, it can be done, just as Park Seeds recommends putting the plants 12" apart in the garden (at least they recommend 30-36" rows).
I pack my plants pretty close together, some closer than others. I base it on an estimate of the adult plant size. By late July most years the limbs of my plants overlap significantly. I have to be careful not to put really tall plants next to short plants, or the short plants can be overwhelmed and shaded out.
Do you really think Park Seed or Reamers cares about how the plants grow? All they want is money.
I don't anything about Reimers except that they're notorious for selling cross bred seed and crummy customer service. I do know a little more about Park Seed, and I have seen evidence that satisfied customers are important to them. Been to their flower festival, too, and their gardens are gorgeous! Oh, they're just as weasely as any large nursery with regards to creating hybrids instead of breeding to stabilize strains, and I have accused them of enhancing the colors in some of their catalog photos; but there is no profit for them in dissatisfied customers.
If you don't like their advice, don't take it. There is no doubt that it is "lowest common denominator" advice. However, don't say it can't be done that way, because it can, and it can be done that way very successfully. It does not have to be as complicated as you guys try and make it. I'm going to repeat that because that point gets lost under the endless threads about lights and watts and luminous flux and grow boxes and nutes and hormones and whatever. It does not have to be as complicated as you guys try and make it. Complicated can be loads of fun, but it not vital to the growth of peppers.
Shoot, one of the guys in mainenance where I work tosses a pack of jalapeno seeds in a plowed field along with tomato, corn, and water melon seeds and gets bumper crops every year. He thinks the coddling I give peppers and tomatoes is hilarious.
So, to get back to the original point, if space is an issue, than planting 6 to 10 weeks before plant out is perfectly doable. If space is not an issue, bigger plants are better, and complicated grow systems can be loads of fun when it's icky cold winter outside.
