I replanted my pepper seeds today. None sprouted after 10 days. I checked their temperature and it was only 74F in a spot that was 80F last year. We have lower heat in the house this year. I bought a seed heat mat this afternoon and I hope that will help the replanted seeds to sprout.
10 comments:
Looking forward to hearing how your mat works.
that is interesting as I have also had trouble with germination this spring...I have a great seed starting book that tells me what each variety needs...even using that info I have had low germination in several varieties...and none in others....
Hi there! I came across your gardening blog a little while ago, first time commenting.
I seem to be having a similar experience with my peppers (and celery). Started the seeds 8 days ago, no sign yet, whereas everything else has come up without issue. I like your idea of using a seed heat mat -- I might need to get one of those too.
I used to put seeds on top of the refrigerator at our old house. The cabinet above was only 12 inches deep, so plenty of room and it held just enough heat. As soon as thing germinated, off to the lights. Sadly, current house has cabinet too deep to do this, and I think the refrigerator is a couple inches taller.
Seed germination can be finicky.
Peppers need warmth. 80-90F. Not that easy to provide in early spring. They should sprout within a week. If not, you need to figure out what's the problem. Low temp, fungus, or old seed are the usual culprits. You only have one do-over, then think about buying seedlings.
I've never grown celery, but I always grow celeriac. Celeriac is a bit less particular than celery, but similar in its requirements. Celery needs moist soil (without fungus taking over). Germination temp of 70-75F is pretty standard. But you need to be patient and start early. It takes 2-3 weeks for germination. My celeriac sprouts a few seedlings in one week, then a few more in two weeks, then in three weeks, all of a sudden I have pots full of seedlings. Right now, my pots are pretty full.
I have mine in the oven with the light on an the door cracked. Its in the 80s F in there. So far, the bell peppers are sprouting at about 10 days, but not the hot peppers yet.
Pepper do-over attempted today, although after buying four new grow lights this year, I decided to save the heat mat for next year's season. Moved the pepper pots to a sunnier shelf in the hopes that maybe the sun will heat up the little plastic greenhouse enough to give them a bit of help getting started. However, I have a feeling purchased pepper seedlings will be in my future!
Celeriac, ah, interesting. I've never tried eating celeriac let alone growing it, but it sounds interesting. Appreciate the suggestion, will consider it for next year's garden. (Space limited, already all accounted for this year... although if my celery seeds ends up a flop and if I come across celeriac seedlings in the stores, may be this year after all!)
p.s. I realized after my first comment, that my Blogger profile was set to private. I've since fixed that, in case you attempted to visit but came to the dead end. If not, absolutely no worries/expectations, I just enjoy reading other people's edible gardening blogs -- and I like that yours has a canine element as well :)
Amazing you can put seeds in the oven to sprout. I don't know if my ove temp goes down that low. I suppose when you need to use the oven you just take tgemem out and then put them back when it's cooled down? I have a dehydrator that heats to temps in the 80-90 range, but I don't think I can turn the fan off. Any, my heat mat seems good. It fit nicely in the plant tray. I put a plastic dome on the try to retain more warmth.
I ended up just adding new seed to the already planted tray. I wonder if old seed plus new planting will sprout? I ran out of several packs of seed. I used a lot of pepper seeds this year. My Thai hot is seed I collected. I'll see what other peppers I have that aren't hybrids and collect them for next year.
I now see you just had the light on in the oven to generate heat, and oven isn't on. Is that right?
Yup, just the 40 W bulb. You do have to monitor the temp. If you use the stove top, the oven will heat up.
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