Hello,

I am William Groth -- the Willinator, We live in Houston, TX in a rental home
after being flooded out by Hurricane Harvey (5 feet of water in the house)
So now I grow my chili peppers in pots. I have had some very good results
with hot chili's including various varieties of habanero's.

My serrano chili's and jalapeno's have done very well as well as Anaheim peppers.
I have tried Poblanos but they have not done as well in pots. I should get my order
for about 30 chili peppers next week and get them planted into pots for this season.

Sorry about the flooding!! But thanks for reporting what peppers have grown well in pots for you. My husband is newly a fan of habanero, I don't have seed or a plant yet.

Well I am waiting for a response from the Cross Country Nursery about my order,
I cannot find where I received anything to confirm my order?? I hope that they
got it and will respond.

Well, I got the response and it appears that I messed up when I tried to submit an order
in late February/early March and so I had to resubmit my order with substitutions

So I can now expect my chili pepper plants to ship in the week of April 27th 2020
That means that as soon as the chili's arrive I will need to get them planted in pots.

Are they sending plants or seeds? Peppers will be fine even arriving a bit later.

Glad you got a response from them.

Willinator said:Well, I got the response and it appears that I messed up when I tried to submit an order
in late February/early March and so I had to resubmit my order with substitutions

So I can now expect my chili pepper plants to ship in the week of April 27th 2020
That means that as soon as the chili's arrive I will need to get them planted in pots.

Hey man, I'm more or less a newbie at growing stuff. No, wait a minute. I'm probably less than a newbie.

Anyhow, you might want to look around and purchase some pepper seeds, they're cheap...by extra. You can get a BIG variety of pepper seeds, too...much larger variety than you can get of plants. If you can grow in pots 'ok' you can sprout and grow up your on plants! Of course it takes up a little room and you will need at least a couple of twin-tube shoplights for the number of plants that you're talking about. Other stuff you need is some styrofoam cups (poke three holes in the bottom of the sides), potting soil, some plastic containers to house them, some plastic sheeting to loosely lay over the top of the containers and cups to keep the environment moist, and a warm temperature (if you're comfortable it'll work, a little warmer is better/faster).

As soon as you see a sprout coming up take it out from beneath the plastic it under the lights in a plastic container (no top). The container will catch water that drains out of the cups and also give the cups some stability when you move them around. In lieu of using lights you can use a sunny area outside if your climate is good where your located...maybe a small hot box or miniature greenhouse if you need to protect them from the cold (a frame with some plastic sheeting stretched over it). Peppers usually take a few days longer than tomatoes to germinate, but given time they come on up provided the conditions are right. Naturally you get a dud every once in a while.

You could start some now and still make some peppers late. That would give you some experience and next year you could start early. Maybe order only half the live plants and plan on germinating and grow out seedlings for the other half. That'd give you a little insurance since you're doing something new.

Trust me, if I can do it, I'm sure you can. It's amazing that a seed half the size of a fruit fly can grow a plant that will give you pounds of produce! Plus, it's fun! :thumbsup:

Anyhow, just wanted to throw that out at ya. Best wishes on your pepper!!
Ed

Since I am now retired perhaps I should look into chili pepper seeds too.
I can check out what might be available from Pepper Joe's who does send
out chili pepper seeds and get some of those little greenhouse type seed starters

You can do it. Shoot, peppers have been sprouting in the wild for a long, long time with no human intervention...we just need to create the same type of environment to germinate them when we want them to germinate.

Plant a couple of seeds in each styrofoam cup (space them about an inch apart) or one seed in each compartment of a multi-compartment planting tray. If you have more than one sprout come up (happens often) you can simply "dig" the seedling out carefully using a pencil and holding it by a leaf, not the stem...a mashed leaf can be replace, a mashed stem means death and destruction. Transplant it while it's small/young.

It's really important to get them in the light, whether natural or artificial, as soon as they sprout. If you use florescent lights keep the light an inch or two above the seedlings. If the light is too far away they will get tall and spindly...you want them short and stocky. Incandescent lights generally are too hot to use. I run my lights 16 hours on and 8 hours off....seems kind of standard for folks. Or, use can use natural light if you can create a safe place for them to grow in...small/mini greenhouse or hot-frame, maybe?

Have fun!
Ed

Well here is what is happening so far:

I have ordered some pepper seeds and a seed starter kit.
I have also ordered my pepper plants from Cross Country Nursery
I still need to consider ordering various types of herbs
I have one tomato plant which was a volunteer and is growing well
with small tomatoes (cherry type)

OK looking for comments?

Are you planning on having more tomatoes in excess of the volunteer cherries? Do you like cucumbers?

I know you say you're renting a house at the moment but do you have ground you can plant in?

OK, Hello everyone,

The volunteer tomato plant is growing in a pot and already has about a dozen
green tomatoes on the vine.

I will be growing all of the pepper plants in pots also. I have done this in previous
years so the pots are in place. The peppers should arrive next week (shipping on
or about April 20th).

Well, it looks like you're all set for your peppers. Why not grow a couple of other things, too? Sounds like you have a tomato plant producing...cherry-type or large-type tomatoes?

Have fun, you'll be busy when your plants get here!

Willinator said:OK, Hello everyone,

The volunteer tomato plant is growing in a pot and already has about a dozen
green tomatoes on the vine.

I will be growing all of the pepper plants in pots also. I have done this in previous
years so the pots are in place. The peppers should arrive next week (shipping on
or about April 20th).

That's great @Willinator!

Well now I am looking forward to getting my chili pepper seeds and seed starter kits as well as
my chili pepper plants from Cross Country Nursery which will arrive next week and I will work on
preparing the pots with compost and some fertilizers. Then when everything arrives I will plant
my chili's and send e-mails to the other people who ordered plants. Then I will work on ordering
herbs to add to the garden including some type of basil and Mexican Mint Marigold and Anise Hyssop.
I might get a couple of types of basil so that I have a variety such as Genovese, and Red Ruben or
African Blue Basil or Thai Basil. With these Joan will have fresh herbs to cook with as I am already
growing oregano and lemon verbena.

I

Well I should receive my 5 tier Greenhouse and my seed starter on April 18th (tomorrow) and I have already received my chili pepper seeds
so I should be able to start working on growing chili peppers from seed but I might need to revisit and get more seeds as I will have
two seed starter kits by Monday April 20th. I am going to take another look at Pepper Joe's today.

If you're looking for hot to very hot pepper seeds, try out Puckerbutt peppers.Recommended by Dillard on another veggie thread. He always has great advice. If I grew peppers from seed, I would order from these guys.

I have now received two sets of different pepper seeds from Pepper Joe's and one Seed Starter Kit
I am still expecting another Seed Starter Kit as well as Seed Starter Soil to be delivered then I will
try planting and growing several varieties of chili peppers from seeds.

You will enjoy the process. Remember to move them under light as soon as possible after sprouting. Leaving a new seedling in a too moist environment for too long can be bad. A day shouldn't bother them, though. Maybe someone with more experience than myself will chime in with more solid info about moving them to artificial-lights/sunlight.

The bad thing is that once they've all germinated, you've tended to them over those weeks, and you get them situated in their home in their pots or in the ground....well, you'll start looking around for something else to start from seed. I haven't to let you know this, and should have divulged this to start with....It's, uhhh....kind of addicting!

Well as of right now I have one of my seed starter kits which has 50 small square seed starter cells and I have gotten
my seed starter soil so I can now consider planting some seeds to see if I can get some plants started.
I found that the other seed starter kit was out of stock so I think I will just order another kit from Walmart and we will
sort out the other later.

Well, I don't need a lot of plants for my garden so I don't use the multi-cell trays. I go ahead and plant pepper and tomato seeds in 12, 16, or 20 ounce styrofoam cups. I plant two to three seeds per cup and thin either by snipping the undesired seedling(s) or gently digging up the seedling I don't want in the cup and replanting in another cup. Having them in the cups allowed me to grow them on to transplant size without needing to "pot up" to a larger container.

But, I'm growing only a few plants...I ended up with eight pepper plants and thirteen tomato plants in the garden. I gave away a couple of pepper plants and tomato plants and have four tomato plants growing in containers. Oh, and I ate a few of the thinned pepper seedlings . All total I ended up with around 30 plants that I grew out in cups to transplant size.

There's lots of folks that use the multi-cell trays for germination, I guess I just don't have the patience or whatever to do the potting-up, etc., that that involves.

When you see all those little green heads start popping up from the potting soil you're gonna be hooked on starting from seed....yep, hook-line-and-sinker!!!

Have fun with it!!!!
Ed