may help. However, most gardeners have the best results by using heating cables under their seedling trays. These heating systems need a thermostat to control the temperature (some systems include one). These are available from garden-supply houses or can be ordered from many of the suppliers listed in the Resources section. I don’t normally use propagation mats, because I get great results by putting my seed trays in my gas oven with the door ajar, where the pilot light keeps the seed-starting soil in the preferred temperature range. This method does not work with the newer gas ranges that do not have a pilot light.
Seedlings a few weeks old have been thinned and fertilized.
The peppers are moved into two-inch containers once they develop true leaves and the faster-growing ones are moved up to one gallon pots. At this stage they are almost ready for planting and can “harden off” in the cold frame.
Check your seed containers every day for germination and moisture content. The seeds of some pepper varieties are slow to germinate, and some may need special treatment—especially if you are starting seed from wild plants. If saving seed yourself, make sure the pods have fully matured before harvesting the seed. If germination rates are still low, or the seeds take longer than two weeks to germinate, you might try soaking the seeds in warm water for 2 or 3 days before planting; or soaking them in a 10% bleach solution for 5 minutes and then rinsing them well.
Once your seeds have germinated, it’s imperative that they immediately be given a quality source of light; otherwise, the new seedlings will be spindly and pale. A greenhouse, cold frame, sun porch, or south-facing window with no overhang will suffice, provided the area is warm (about 70°F during the day and 60°F at night), receives plenty of light, and is not drafty. Or you can get very good results by using cool-white fluorescent lights, which are available from home-supply stores or from specialty mailorder houses. The lights are hung just above the plants for maximum light (no farther than 3 or 4 inches away) for 16 hours a day and are raised as the plants get taller.
Fertilize your seedlings weekly with a quarter-strength solution of fish emulsion, and continue to water them gently. Once all your seedlings are up and have two sets of leaves, you can let the surface (about 1/2 inch) of the soil dry out between waterings. Test with your finger to see how moist the soil is. Overwatering can encourage damping-off.
If you have seeded thickly and have crowded plants, thin out the weaker ones. Thinning is important because crowded seedlings do not have room for sufficient root growth. It’s less damaging to do the thinning with small scissors. Cut the little plants out, leaving the remaining seedlings an inch or so apart. Once seedlings have at least two sets of true leaves (the first leaves that sprout from a seed are called seed leaves and usually look different from the later leaves), move the seedlings up to a larger container, such as a 4-inch pot.
Transplanting Your Peppers
Once the peppers you have moved into 4-inch pots are 3 to 4 inches tall and have several sets of leaves—and the weather is warm—transplant them into the garden. Ideally, the peppers should be just at the bud stage and the weather nicely warm. (They should not have open flowers. If they do, pinch the flowers off when transplanting them.) I know from experience that if I get too anxious and set the peppers out too early, when the weather and soil are too cool, the plants just sit there waiting for warm weather, become stressed, and often don’t catch up all season. The ideal time to transplant peppers is when all danger of frost is past, nighttime temperatures are reliably in the mid-50°F range, and the soil has warmed up.
If warm weather has not yet settled in and your peppers are ready to be transplanted, move them to larger containers (at least 1-gallon size) while you wait for the weather and soil to warm. Some gardeners with superior growing conditions, in a greenhouse or such, deliberately start their seeds early to extend their short growing season, and move their plants up to ever larger pots until weather permits putting them outside.
When transplanting peppers out into the garden, first prepare the soil well by working in lots of organic matter and adding organic fertilizers.
Make a hole and place the transplant so it will be at soil level.
Put in a label, and gently press down around the plant. If you are using drip irrigation, install it at this time.
Young plants started indoors should be “hardened off” before they are planted in the garden. This means placing the containers outside in a sheltered place a few hours a day for a week or two, leaving them a little longer each day to let them get used to the differences in temperature, humidity, and air movement. A cold frame is a good holding area for hardening off seedlings. Turn off the heating cable and open the lid more each day.
Occasionally I buy pepper transplants from local nurseries. Before setting these or home-grown transplants out in the garden, I check to see if a mat of roots has formed at the bottom of the root ball. If it has, I remove it or open it up so the roots won’t continue to grow in a tangled mass. I set the plant in the ground at the same height as it was in the container, pat the plant in place gently by hand, and water each plant in well to remove air bubbles. (I never have problems with cutworms that destroy young seedlings by girdling the plant at the base, but if I did, I would place cardboard collars made from paper-towel tubing around the stems to protect them when I planted the peppers.) I space plants so that they won’t be crowded once they mature. When peppers, or any vegetables, grow too close together, they become prone to rot diseases and mildew. (On the other hand, gardeners in hot arid or high-altitude areas can benefit from planting peppers closer together because the overlapping foliage protects the fruits on nearby plants from sunburn.)
I plant most pepper varieties about 2 feet apart, in full sun. Small, short ornamental peppers like ‘Fiesta,’ ‘Variegata,’ and ‘Super Chile’ I plant 1 foot apart and in front of larger varieties, and the spreading tall cultivars, like ‘Bolivian Rainbow’ and wild chiltepíns, I plant 2 1/2 feet apart and behind shorter varieties. I water the plants well at this point, sprinkling the soil gently for three or four applications, letting the water be absorbed between waterings. If I’m planting on a very hot day or the transplants have been in a protected greenhouse, I shade them with a shingle, or such, for a week or so, placed on the sunny side of the plants. If the weather turns cool, I place floating row covers over the plants. Once they are planted, I install my irrigation laser or ooze tubing—see “Watering and Irrigation Systems,” page 93, for more information—and if the soil is warm I mulch with a few inches of organic matter. I keep the transplants moist but not soggy for the first few weeks.
Most pepper plants benefit from staking, which I do soon after planting. I have found that peppers in general are brittle and their branches break readily. The taller plants with large peppers, in particular, often lean over from their own weight, and their branches are easily broken by wind or the weight of the fruit. To support them I use recycled wooden stakes, but wire cages, or constructed wooden cages, also work. When using a stake and twine on any type of plant, I apply the twine in a loose figure eight, with one half of the eight around the stake and the other around the plant’s stem. I try not to bunch the foliage when tying twine around a plant, as this can cause disease due to lack of air around the leaves. I also avoid tying the twine tightly around the stems because that tends to strangle the plant as the stem grows larger. In addition, a plant will be stronger if it is allowed to move some with the wind.
Maintaining
