Tatts' first time growing anything from seed

[SIZE=10.5pt]I have never grown anything from seed before, nevermind had much of a garden. My very limited gardening experience is a couple of herbs, Mint and Parsley, which are 2 plants that you almost can't kill. I also have some Rosemary plants that were in the house when we bought it and a Lemon Tree that we recently purchased and have put in a pot. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]My experience with chilli plants is limited, I [/SIZE]bought a few chilli plants (not even sure what they are, Thai variety of some type) from a market and I have kept them alive for about a month so far.
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[SIZE=10.5pt]Since I have no idea what I’m doing, any advice along the way would be much appreciated. I am in Melbourne, Australia and we have a temperate climate. Winter (June-August) night time temps occasionally get below 0°[/SIZE] (Celsius) and in Summer our hottest day for the year will be low to mid 40’s.
 
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[SIZE=10.5pt]I love chillies so when I found this site and the opportunity to get some seeds from members, I jumped at the chance.[/SIZE]
 
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[SIZE=10.5pt]Thanks to JungleRain and his huge seed list and [/SIZE]Micca for his seasoning pepper seeds I had 6 strains to plant last night. I purchased a heated mini greenhouse and some peat pellets on the weekend in anticipation of planting all the seeds once they arrived.
 
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[SIZE=10.5pt]Initially I put some water in a bucket, soaked the peat pellets and placed 6 seeds from each variety in warm cups of water. After about an hour I plugged in the greenhouse so it would start warming up - first mistake - and then drained the pellets, placed them in the mini greenhouse tray and then added 2 seeds per pellet.[/SIZE]
 
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[SIZE=10.5pt]I planted 3 pellets each of:[/SIZE]
 

• [SIZE=10.5pt]Seasoning Peppers[/SIZE]
   
  
• [SIZE=10.5pt]Bahamian Goat Pepper[/SIZE]
   
  
• [SIZE=10.5pt]Fatalii Yellow[/SIZE]
   
  
• [SIZE=10.5pt]Antillais Caribbean[/SIZE]
   
  
• [SIZE=10.5pt]Habanero Giant White[/SIZE]
   
  
• [SIZE=10.5pt]Habanero Chocolate[/SIZE]
   
  

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[SIZE=10.5pt]I knew I had to have them correctly labelled else I would struggle to know which one was which so I also bought some white plant marking things. I wrote the names of each seed on the sticks and put them behind the pellets. I spaced them out across the trays - second mistake - in front of their respective markers.[/SIZE]
 
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[SIZE=10.5pt]All done I wanted to take a photo of the greenhouse with everything finished. I had it on the bench and there was a few other things around so I thought I'd move it to a clear spot for a better photo. Remember my first mistake, well I forgot to unplug it before I started walking with it. Took 2 steps, the plug caught, jerked the greenhouse and knocked over all the pellets. Luckily I didn't drop the whole thing so that was a positive, I guess. [/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=10.5pt]My second mistake meant they were only sitting in the tray loosely and once they fell over they were a bit mixed up. I re-organised them but I'm not sure that I have them back in the correct order [/SIZE]
 
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[SIZE=10.5pt]So now I have 18 pellets with 2 seeds in each, hopefully correctly marked. sigh.[/SIZE]
 
 
 
I placed the greenhouse on top of the fridge, plugged it back in and turned it on. This morning when I checked it before work it had a fair bit of condensation in it. I opened one of the vents and it was quite warm. I don't have a thermometer so perhaps that should be my next purchase.
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[SIZE=10.5pt]As I go along I will post updates along with some photos.[/SIZE]
 
*Edit: Added photo

 
[SIZE=10.5pt]Adrian[/SIZE]

 

[Tatts]

Looking great Adrian! I'm in Melbourne also and my plants are a little behind yours. I grabbed the same heated propagator from Bunnings too. Good luck with your grow!

Seems there are quite a few from Melbourne and surrounds on here
What varieties are you growing?
 

It's good to see that you are getting a result!  I tried to use peat pellets before in my grow and have had nothing but frustration; either too wet or too dry to ever get anything to germinate and survive.
 
Do you have drain holes on your Solo cups?

I haven't found them too bad. Not sure they are worth getting again. I will try some seed trays and see how i feel about them.
One definite advantage for the Peat Pods is the transplanting is super easy.
 
I probably should have mentioned the cups. Yep, i put two holes in the bottom of each which seems to be enough for them to drain ok.

 

[Tatts]

I'm finally organised enough to post some photos from my camera instead of from my phone.
Here is the White Hab a few weeks ago v's yesterday.


 
I picked up one of the plants that is still in a peat pot but hasn't been transplanted yet. I was surprised at the number of roots that had come through:

 
The other half tried to grow a Bhut Jolokia earlier this year. It sprouted ok but we were heading into winter so it has been rather dormant. I put it outside a few weeks ago to give it some sun. This is what happens if you don't harden them first, sunburn.

It has a few tiny leaves growing so i don't think i killed it but lesson learnt. Is there a special name for the new growth?
 
I also planted a few tomato plants earlier this week and here is the first one that germinated, a couple Juane Flamme's.

 

[Tatts]

Not much to report, all are growing well. The white hab is getting huge.
I gave away a few plants to family and friends as I was running out of room.