My germination is dead slow, just one in the last fortnight.
In hindsight i should have waited until i had a heat mat (and electrickery) or just waited till spring, im using my redneck/DIY gas fired heat mat for the time being & putting the tray in a nice sunny spot during the day, but so very slow.
Mezo.
As you know spring in Perth is cold, the coldest time of the year, and often wet. So my lasts years spring germination was a fail. Like Mega, started really early this year.
I got about 20 germinated in april, 100% germination rates using no heat, no light to do it.
And it's till warm days and plenty of sun even now, So I just put them outside every day, and bring them back inside at night. So they're not leggy like a spring germination seedling without artificial light would be, and I needed no electrickery heat or light.
And It's easy to keep them alive over winter, just keep them out of the rain and hardly water them. Piece of piss. The plants i did this last year to (that survived slugs and snails) took off in spring, gave my 4 rounds of pods each and was hardly bothered by pests/disease, unlike all the chillies I struggled to germinate even with heat and light in mid spring. They were too small to survive the pests and disease, to small to put up with the really high summer temps. As you know, Perth goes from spring (the coldest time of the year) to summer in the 40C max temps in just two months.
The wet or really really cold dawns of Sept/Oct to the max day temps of Nov/Dec is a pretty huge temp change. It's warmer right now than it often is in Sept/Oct...
Perth - No frosts to speak of really, so no worries. Everyone says plant out after the lasts frosts. Well OK then, that means plant out any time almost...
The weather is weird here. There's 2 rose bushes out the front of this place. Used to get aphid attacks, and like my chillies, over the summer, the plants looked unhealthy. The leaves often go yellow and drop off, or get some disease.
Right now in autumn, all it's leaves are growing back nice and green, and it's starting to get full of roses! One plant has just the one rose flower, the other about 7. And it's almost winter here.
Good to see some of the old suspects about again too!
