How do I grow peppers from the seed?

My son asked me if we could plant the seeds from the peppers today while I was prepping the dinner. I said we could grow them but you can't just stick them in the ground. How do start them off?

 

So, is it a plant that will, once established, be there forever, giving us peppers?
If we kept them indoors for the duration would they be successful

 

Personally I would buy some seed form a well known brand, and do the magic slight-of-hand and switch the Supermarket Pepper's seed for something more "guaranteed".

They need a fair bit of heat, so ideally a greenhouse or conservatory crop. I wouldn't grow them outdoors in a bed / border, but pots on a patio might be OK - especially if you can bring them indoors on cool nights, particularly early in the year - until, say, late June. (They don't need windowsill sunlight at night, of course, so just something to keep the chill of them at night will do).

Greenhouse would be better though ...

 

I've grown chillies from supermarket retrieved seeds for years, the germination rate is pretty close to 100%. The plant will grow, in a conservatory, it might not be true to the parent plant though. My chillies have been the same as the one I bought.

 

"So, is it a plant that will, once established, be there forever, giving us peppers?"

Chillie peppers can be overwintered, I've never succeeded, so I treat them as an annual. As perennials they are described as "short lived perennials" - bit of an oxymoron really!

Dunno about Sweet Peppers though ... again, I grow them as an annual.

 

they annuals, you can keep them inside as much as you like, they will not give you fruit and die,
some chillies, hmm.. are you gonna have enough heat and sunlight during the winter?????
do not think so

 

I've overwintered chilli plants, but it wasn't worth the effort. They never really flourished like a spring-sown plant.

 

In the conservatory I have kept a plant for two years. No new fruit in the winter, but the fruit lasts a long time on the plant. It looked pretty xmassy in December. New flowers in spring, not as much as year 1 but plenty for a family.