I believe it is because the growing season is so short in South Dakota. Those plants have to be mature enough to start producing right out of the gate.

Johannian, when do you plant your peppers outdoors? (Mine go out around June 1st, I start my pepper seeds around March 15th)

These are some seeds I saved from the poblanos I cooked a few days ago. The peppers were green, not ripe/red. I'm going to let these dry another week or so and then see if any will germinate. They were a lighter color when first removed from the peppers and have slowly turned more golden brown...not sure if they're just curing/drying out or getting ready to rot. I've got my doubts, but figured "what the heck"...

Ed, its fun to try. We'll learn something, maybe.

I have planted seeds already to give them 12 weeks before planting out.

Same, I want to have mine out first week of April. I will put out tomatoes in march, but the peppers like to wait. Down here, by the time most of you are showing your great pictures of veggies, ours are finished and the plants composted already.
I have so many seeds, I nixed the getting plants idea. You can order peppers from them in september and Im going to try that as a way to try different peppers as opposed to growing them. Ill hopefully then have some I like, and seeds from them for next year as well.

Ed, I'll be interested to hear how those pepper seeds do for you; theoretically they shouldn't be developed enough at that green pepper stage - but it wouldn't be the first time that something that seemed to be "common sense" turned out to be untrue!

The 'tomatoes' on a vine at sams have had the seeds sprouting when you cut into them. I was wondering the same there.

That was on Pinterest last year, how you could sprout tomato plants from laying a slice of tomato on dirt. Yes, you can do it but you don't have any idea what plant variety you will get; seeing that grocery store tomatoes are so hybridized.

gardenglory said:The 'tomatoes' on a vine at sams have had the seeds sprouting when you cut into them. I was wondering the same there.

I've occasionally had that happen with my own tomatoes sitting on the kitchen counter; I think some varieties are more subject to it than others. (Those are ripe tomatoes, though - whereas the green poblanos are still immature.)

I was planning on planting my tomato and pepper seeds this weekend but then saw that Easter falls on April 17th. I do respect the "Easter Snap" phenomenon where there is one last freeze or heavy frost just prior to Easter at least within a couple of weeks of it...usually closer. So I moved my seed-planting date a couple of weeks later. It seems that most places tell you to plan your seed starting date so that your transplants are six weeks old when they're set out in the garden. But, I believe that is for tomatoes...and smaller transplants. I'm shooting for *tomato* transplants that are eight weeks old and in the past the peppers got planted at the same time as the tomatoes. I know that peppers germinate and grow at a slower rate (at least for me they do) so @sallyg I would expect your 12-week-old pepper plants to be really nice sized and sturdy. Now, I'm rethinking my seed-starting dates and lengths of grow-out. Another thing I'm trying to work around is the roller-coaster cold weather that we've been having...the old trailer gets cold and I'm cheap (don't want to run heat ). I might could get by with a 100W incandescent bulb hanging below the seed trays for heat, though...that would cost me $0.31 a day. I've got a thermostat I could hook up that might lower that a bit.

@gardenglory , your mention of putting the peppers out a bit later than the tomatoes helps me a bit. Something I had been pondering about. I know that peppers like it warm. And they grow slower than tomatoes. I may just go ahead and plant peppers but hold off on the tomatoes I could put one of my plastic containers with pepper seeds in it here in the house somewhere (my wife will be thrilled! ). But, I do like to have a light over my seed-planted cups so about the time they start sprouting I can have the lights already on them...when one type of plant sprouts I go ahead and take the cover off of the cups and put the container beneath the lights...I figure the rest will be popping up shortly and I like all of them to be wearing sunglasses when they pop up!!! I keep thinking about the $0.31 a day light bulb...decisions, decisions...

Intheswamp said:These are some seeds I saved from the poblanos I cooked a few days ago. The peppers were green, not ripe/red. I'm going to let these dry another week or so and then see if any will germinate. They were a lighter color when first removed from the peppers and have slowly turned more golden brown...not sure if they're just curing/drying out or getting ready to rot. I've got my doubts, but figured "what the heck"...

Oh, shoot - you're supposed to save the seeds b e f o r e you cook the peppers?
Hate to admit I was late in gathering pods off the plants, then they sat on a shelf in the greenhouse ...some peppers virtually rotted away without drying; I still took seeds. And in my usual organized timely manner they have been sitting on various towels and paper plates on the kitchen counter for...lets just say several weeks...now. Except those that get knocked onto the counter or the floor every time I go carelessly throwing things onto the counter. Yep. Organized.

A guy takes his girl out for a romantic evening. Sitting at a nice restaurant...fine china, silver, fancy spread, wine, waiter with a fake accent, romantic,... The small black box he has in his coat pocket has his heart racing. Tonight's the night he's going to ask the princess sitting across the candlelit table from him to spend the rest of her life with him as his wife. She is unaware as she looks down at her exquisite salad. He begins to open the box and opens his mouth to ask the all so important question when suddenly his heart's desire says, "I wonder if these will germinate?" as she smears some type of dressing covered seeds onto her cloth napkin that she casually shoves down into her purse with a little burp.

We do what we gotta do when the opportunity arises....

JBS, I've got some Red Savina peppers that dried up to nothing, black, crispy...hmm, I might dig in those and see if there's any seeds that...look like seeds.

I'm still planting seeds saved from peppers harvested in 2017. Almost all of them produced very productive plants last year.

Did you intentionally designate peppers that would ripen for seed-saving. Or, were these saved from "green" peppers that you ate? I understand that the ripe, red peppers are edible, too, but I figure you know what I'm talking about.

The peppers were picked at various times, most still green, some turned red.

Thanks, that gives me hope for the seeds from my green peppers.

Intheswamp said: I may just go ahead and plant peppers but hold off on the tomatoes I could put one of my plastic containers with pepper seeds in it here in the house somewhere (my wife will be thrilled! ).

I'm just the opposite. Because peppers here don't really take off till the heat of summer, I don't feel pressured to start my peppers as soon as the tomatoes. The tomatoes need a growing jump on the summer heat/humidity.

Interesting to see how we all come at it from different perspectives.

Kristi, I think I'll look at my strategies a little bit more. Tomatoes do fare better in less heat than peppers do.

Yea, Ive got to get them out long before the peppers. I like to plant the stem way down in the dirt anyway so if I jump the gun and start them to soon its ok. Just gotta have something to do.

JBarstool said:
It seems soooo early to me, how do you do it? I am in a significantly milder clime than yours (we don't use USDA zones but it is probably 9a) and I won't even think about starting peppers until mid to late March!

Well, I believe it is because over here starting in late March we get a lot of sun, even though at the same time it's still 20 or below outside. If I start my pepper seeds in late(r) February (Feb 20) in the garage, I'll be ready to have them outside by the middle of May, which is when I'm supposed to plant them in the ground.

ardesia said:I believe it is because the growing season is so short in South Dakota. Those plants have to be mature enough to start producing right out of the gate.

That's correct, Alice. We have a very tight gardening schedule over here, especially with the lettuce if you want to have multiple successive successful crops (yeesh, those two "success" words are a mouthful).

Weedwhacker said:Johannian, when do you plant your peppers outdoors? (Mine go out around June 1st, I start my pepper seeds around March 15th)

Since we start ours in February, they're supposed to go out around May 15-20, but it all depends on when the last frost is supposed to be. Last year even if we had planted crops, we wouldn't have been able to start until June 5 or so, because we were getting frost until June 1st, and predictions of frost until June 7 (which didn't end up being true, but the predictions had a pretty good chance of happening according to the weather channel).