Sprouts!

These are my kind of sprouts at Christmas. Not those disgusting green balls of doom that haunt your dinner plate, no, I prefer these:

 

This is one of my Cherry Bomb seeds that I planted in the heated propagator, I only planted two of these so far, you can just see the other seed just poking out on the right hand side of the photo (the white blob!)

Two out of two germinated, only planted on 15/12 and the photo is a day old, so that's 6 days from planting to seedling, you can see now why I like Cherry Bomb so much!

Now just need all the other seeds to sprout, although I am not holding my breath for the bhut jolokia! :o)

Enjoy your Christmases!

Sowing seeds straight from chilli pods

I wondered whether chilli seeds needed drying out or leaving for a while before sowing, in order to ensure that they germinate properly.

So I tried sowing them straight from the pod.

The simple answer is no, they don't need drying out. Yes you can plant them straight from the pod immediately. I had excellent results with almost 100 percent germination rates in my trials.

I would hazard that you could cut a pod in half,  plant it,  and it would still germinate fine,  although I think it might rot and stink,  and of course it's better to space the seeds out in the usual fashion ;-)

Heated Propagator: Planting Chilli Seeds Early For 2014

So here's mid December,  and although some of last year's chillies are confused and still flowering, it's time to plant the earliest batch of 2014 crop!

Last year I was very late to the game, not planting anything until around May, so this year I hope for a lot better results!

I've got myself a heated propagator from amazon uk, £21 for a 38cm and it's 8 watt. Since it will be on a 15 degrees Celsius windowsill, I think it should be powerful enough to keep the soil around 25 degrees.

Sankey 100 - 8 Watt Propagator

The propagator comes with 2 trays.

..and capillary matting at the bottom. So just add soil and it's ready to go. 

Planting

I'll be careful to plant chillies that I think will germinate together so that I can move the trays out and put in new ones, instead of having to prick them out.

Tray 1- slow germination:

Orange habanero, numex pinata, bhut jolokia

Tray 2- fast germination:

Thai super chilli, cherry bomb, apache, and some seeds from my "super chilli" that I bought as a plant last year.

All done, now time to sit back and wait to see if anything pops up!

Are you planting your chillies yet?