Update on Pepper Seedlings

I wanted to give an update on Seeds to Start Indoors. Today’s topic is peppers.  I started them President’s Day Weekend which is mid February.  I am growing 4 types of hot peppers and 3 types of sweet peppers.

So I started out with 6 plants of each and then to save space, I saved the following 28 pepper seedlings:

• 5 Lunchbox Peppers from Johnny’s Selected Seeds – If you recall I bought a blended seed packet from Johnny’s but they don’t color code their seeds. I am trying to get at least one plant of each pepper color of yellow, orange and red.  One plant died : (
• 4 of each of the following sweet peppers:  Marconi Gold from Botanical Interests and Sweet Apple from cousin Sheri – It is always nice to have a gardening buddy to share seeds with!  Sheri got these Sweet Apple seeds from her gardening buddy and passed them forward to me.  I can’t wait to see how they turn out!  I already know that they taste great!
• 4 of each of the following hot peppers:  NuMex Joe E. Parker Anaheim Green Chile, Jalafuego (jalapeno) and Poblano from Botanical Interests

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  3 Cayenne Peppers – So I bought the Cayenne Blend seeds from Botanical Interests last year.  Some of the seeds produce plants with yellow peppers that turn red and some are green peppers that turn red.  This is the only pepper that is being stubborn.  I want one plant of each color to put in containers on our back patio.  Last year I ended up with two plants with the peppers that start out green.  I thought that I just labeled the seedlings wrong.  In the end, it didn’t matter because we ended up with enough cayenne pepper.  Since the seeds are color coded, I started out with 3 green (the seed is color coded red) and 3 yellow (the seed is color coded yellow) this year to up my chances for accuracy!  No problem with the green pepper plants but the yellow ones are difficult!  Only one yellow seed germinated and at a slower pace and then the seed didn’t want to release from the leaves of the seedling.  I decided to “surgically” remove it with my little scissors.  It worked out, but this plant is so much smaller.  I will let you know how it recovers.

As you can see from the pictures, majority of the pepper plants look healthy and have multiple leaves.  When we have sunny warm days with no wind, I take the pepper plants outside for some real sunlight for a few hours each day.

Labeling each pot is important because all of the pepper plants look alike. I use a Sharpie and put the name on the upper edge of the Jiffy Pot.

If you missed my posts on seed ideas for hot peppers and sweet peppers, just click on the links.