Starting Peppers: Pre-Sprouting Seeds

Europeans are amazed that we eat our peppers green.  “Why wouldn’t you wait until they’re ripe?  You don’t eat your tomatoes green do you?”  Just as there’s a difference in taste between a green versus a ripe tomato, there’s a difference in taste between a green versus a ripe (Red, Orange, Yellow) sweet Pepper.  

To get a sweet pepper to fully ripen, I need to start them early – the beginning of March. Years ago, I would start my pepper seeds in seed flats like my tomatoes and wait.  And wait…. for them to come up.  So now to start them effectively I prefer to pre-sprout my pepper seeds.  I find by pre-sprouting them I can also select the strongest, most vigorous seeds to make it up through the soil.

I soak about one and a half times as many seeds as the number of plants that I want to grow outside plus a small buffer that can be given away or selected out.  My method is to lay the seeds within a wet, folded paper towel and place it flat within a sandwich bag.  The paper towel is folded only once.  This is placed in a bit warmer than room temperature place if possible.  

If I have a grow light on, I can often find the perfect place resting somewhere on the fluorescent grow fixture – not too warm and not cold.  However, my pepper starting time falls just before the grow lights come back out.  My seeded onions left for the south garage window or the greenhouse about four weeks ago and the lights with their stand were taken down for over a month.  So my next best place for warmth is up above the cupboards above the fridge in the kitchen.

The seeds must be checked each day and checking the paper towel is simple.  There’s no need to unwrap it, just hold the sandwich bag to the light to look through the paper towel to discern any sprouting.  As soon as the tips of their small rootlets start to show, they must be planted in flats or small pots. 

This is after 4 days -- no sprouts seen.

 

This is 12 hours later.

I use the point of a Bic pen to make a hole in the potting mix and carefully slide the seed, root point down with the seed casing on its edge (vertical), not flat (horizontal).  One could even use tweezers.  As with most other non-spherical seeds, it is easier for it to push up through the soil with the seed casing on its edge.  

Seed depth is a tricky thing yet still a bit flexible.  If planted too shallow, the seed casing pops out of the soil attached to the tips of the leaflets too soon. The casing could be too dry and hard to fall off the two starting leaves.  If planted too deep it takes too long to come up and exhausts its energy before emerging and opening its first leaves. 

If the first leaves struggle to free themselves from the casing, my method for freeing them is to resoak the casing with a drop of water from my fingertip.  After at least 10 minutes, the casing is soft enough to be gently pulled free from the leaf tips.  Some could say that the plant lacked vigor and should be culled but I tend to blame it on my seed depth.

The planted pre-sprouted seeds still need to be kept a bit warmer than room temperature, so they go back up above the fridge.  I keep checking for signs of emersion once or twice a day.  The moment the first green starts to appear through the soil they must be placed under the grow light.  And when using fluorescent tubes, the youngest plants must be within 1.5 inches of the tubes.

I’ve always shunned the advice of planting the seeds in their own bigger pots, letting them grow into their pots without moving them.  I find this practice leads to watering and root rotting problems.  

I prefer to plant either in small pots to start or a group evenly spaced in a small flat, like a milk jug bottom, and later transplant them into progressively larger containers.  I’ll mention this more in the future.

For years I’ve only planted one variety of pepper seed.  I’ve preferred an Italian Ramshorn, three lobed variety like Super Shepherd from Stokes.  They turn red faster than most and size up nicely.  They’re also open pollinated so I’ve been saving my seed, hence the single variety.  

But last year’s plants had disease problems and the peppers were quite thin walled, so this year I’m trying something my son TOG has been growing: Kapello F1 from Osborne Quality Seeds.  (“sweet, tasty, bright red, smooth, very prolific”).  They’re only two lobed but the flesh is much thicker.  And they’re hybrid so I could try some other varieties since I won’t be saving any seed.  I might trade a plant with TOG to try something different.

Kapello F1 Pepper.  Picture taken from Osbourne Quality Seeds online catalogue.
 

Starting peppers in early March is the true beginning to growing transplants for the summer’s crops.  It’s the time of year that’s full of promise to see how it all works out.

Happy Gardening.