Am I too late?

to sow peppers to fruit this season? I have purchased some California wonders and some Oriental paper lanterns. I'll be starting them off indoors unfortunately, due to a severe lack of green house! Also if it's not too late can I get them to germinate quicker than usual so they can play catch up?

 

Now is about the right time to sow. I've not got mine in yet.

 

You need to get a wiggle on as they are a long season crop, so the sooner you sow the better.

Only way to hurry them up is to use a grow lamp to extend the daylight hours at this time of year.

 

Well we have not sown ours yet and indeed never have before the middle of this month. There is no point here, we are just too cold for them to thrive. But we do get a very good crop from them, we are still eating last years (frozen) and there are enough to last well beyond the new crop and last year was not a particularly good season.

 

Well .. depends on variety, availability of a greenhouse (or not), and where abouts in the country you are. (Wish this forum made Location a compulsory field during registration )

If they are going to be outside I agree with Palustris point that sowing too early will mean the plants have to be kept indoors too long, and prolonged periods on a windowsill will not make for the most health of plants.

 

We find this early sowing of things quite amusing and a bit puzzling. It is not surprising that later on in May there are lots of people crying that their plants are suffering from the adverse effects of thr weather.
As Kristen says, you really do need to know your own microclimate and it helps if you know where a person is posting from and what equipment they have to help them grow.

 

There was an early-sowing-tomato-thread on another forum last year. Utterly pointless IMHO. The people doing it all said it was just-for-fun. All the non-participants said it was a waste of time.

They had an armpit-race too - taking cuttings from "armpit" cuttings on Tomato plants (fair enough), the race was to see how many generations you could get in a season ...

I prefer to fill my greenhouse with plants that give me a crop for the longest possible season ... sorry to be conventional & boring!

 

[quote
As Kristen says, you really do need to know your own microclimate and it helps if you know where a person is posting from and what equipment they have to help them grow.[/quote]



Jack McHammocklashing

 

I sowed mine this weekend, soon enough I reckon. I've not really grown them before, so I'm not speaking from experience. I tend to go by the dates on the packet, and try to apply some common sense

 

I struggle with common sense he he, i have none! from Norfolk...jokes please. At the moment all i have is a very sunny window sill and a propagator. I will eventually move them outside to one of the plastic grow houses. However i've just noticed the cover has perished so i'll need to seek a replacement before that happens.

 

Hello i have just planted mine along with a few other things so we can look forward to them growing at around the same time, good luck with your Peppers.​

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Well at least with six fingers on each hand you will be able to work quicker with your six identical cousins :-)

Jack McH

 

A friend of mine told me to put the seeds on a sheet of damp kitchen towel and put them in a plastic container in the airing cupboard. I was sceptical, but sure enough the seeds started to germinate after 3 days. I started some off underneath a propigator too. I'm eager to see which ones will be stronger and fruit first.

 

"I was sceptical"

Seeds need Air, Heat, Moisture to germinate. (Well, some tricky ones that have "dormancy" will need some other factors, often a cold spell similar to Winter, or passing through a bird's stomach!)

Soil will do if using moist paper kitchen towel make sure it's not too wet (other seeds will be submerged and get no air) and that the paper towel above the seeds is not making a tight sandwich that excludes air.

If they are in the airing cupboard make sure you get them out and into the light AS SOON AS they germinate, otherwise they will grow tall and "leggy" in the dark, and are unlikely to recover well from that. Watch out for seeds that need light to germinate too (same method is fine, just don't put them in the dark)