THE CHILLIES THREAD 2018

We do it a bit differently. We use seed sprouters and don't bother with warmth. Seeds are put on kitchen paper in the sprouter and stacked out of the way in the kitchen. No heat used and we have six layers of them.

They have just started germinating - may be difficult to see in this picture



We pot them up when they are at the two leaf stage and about an inch high. There's no disturbance of the roots (what little there is of them) as we just cut the paper just around the seedling and pot it up with the paper. Even the stem doesn't get touched as we just handle the paper. They go into 2" pots and are potted on at the usual stage when roots show in the bottom.

We find this the easiest way as we do so many of them (40 - 50 per layer) and sell most of the plants for charity.

 

Yes, we do lots of different edible seeds such as bean sprouts. We also use it, sometimes, for starting off things such as butternut squash seeds.

There is no heating at all and they just get the ambient temperature in the kitchen.

 

What about a light source Shiney? Do you have any additional grow lamps or is it just mother nature?

 

For germination they just sit on the kitchen worktop and under the top cupboard. Once they're potted up, usually not much longer than a week after germination, they go onto the windowsill in my office. So they get the light from the window and there is some heat from the radiator below the window.

 

Do they go leggy at all? I've always found at this time of year they just go leggy but I sometimes get round that by curling the stem around so it fits in the pot with a bit sticking up with the leaves on.

 

As we transfer them to a pot whilst they are still very small and at the two leaf stage we don't do anything just then. They do sometimes then start growing a bit leggy. If they do, then we just add a bit more compost. Sometimes we don't transfer them to pots but just into a seed tray.

With the Nagas we always put them into a seed tray first. We tend to let them get bigger in the sprouter before transferring them.

The Shiney Hybrids tend to grow doesn't matter what we do to them!

These are Nagas.







These are Hybrids

 

Bags of time to sow chilli seeds M! Just do it soon lol

 

The Hybrids are pretty quick to germinate and usually have a high germination rate.

 

Thinking about it I'm seriously considering a set of plug plants or small plants from somewhere such as World of Chillies...