hot pepper disaster

well, up to day 22 and not one pepper seed has germinated. can't understand what went wrong. started with the standard 2 inch plastic cell. filled it with seed starting formula. watered from the bottom till it was nice and moist. placed seed on top added a little more moist seed starting formula to cover and placed it in the doamed container. placed the container on top of a electric heating blanket and then covered it up completely. temp inside has to be at least 75 to 80 degrees all day long. at night i lower the heat nbr on the blanket from nbr 9 to nbr 6. on april 15 i started about 9 tomato seeds the same way and some are beginning to germinate. oh, well, maybe next year.

The tomato seeds will more easily germ than the pepper seeds. Those peppers really need some heat, much more that tomatoes. (Why do you turn it down at night? Any idea how low the temp goes at nite?)

Hang in there Herb, again, pepper plants are temperamental, and some-times they can germinate after a month or so. My Chiltepin, and a few other varieties, did not come up until the 25th to 27th day after sowing them. So ya never know, and some of the seeds you gave me, are doing wonders, and I really did nothing different than you, so hang tough. The only thing I did differently, but wrong, was that the temperature was not the A-Typical for peppers, 75- 90, it was actually about 60-65 degrees for me, and it worked well (Benedica-God Bless in Italian, or something in that neighborhood) I'm Irish, we just drink to a good thing, rather than use words-LOL. I'm going to post some pictures this week, so you can see what your seeds turned out to be, stay focused my friend, we have bigger fish to fry. Your gardening friend, Danny

horseshoe - my dw is worried that it would catch fire while we are sleeping. we have never used it since we got it 35 years ago. she always worried about fire. but believe me, it doesnt get cold at all. the tray is completely surrounded by the heating blanket and when i get up in moring it is still a little ware.

danny - hope you are right.

ten four, herbie. Just hang in there...they may germ yet!

Herbie, I too am starting peppers this year for first time ever. Have several varieties seeding. Many have germinated, even a few transplanted in garden pots and still a few such as the tepins that have not yet come up. Was hoping to take pics of a few but we are having gusty 40 to 50 mph winds today (common here) and if they survive the winds I will definitely try to get the pics. Would love to see other folks pics of pepper plants. It's hard to know where in the garden to plant them and such because a lot of them I haven't been able to really find out how big or wide the plants get, so doing a lot of guess work. Wish there was a pepper forum like for tomatoes. Learning so much though on this site, I can't complain....

faronell - i have found that most pepper plants grow wide rather than tall. i know they like plenty of heat while they grow in the garden. good luck with your plants. give hot pepper dan a yell. he plants alot of hot peppers.

If you get them started it really helps to use wallOwaters for these guys till they get about a foot high.

i threw out the peppers and instead will buy a few for this year. will try again next year.