The 2020 Pepper Season Has Begun

After initially planning to scale things back a bit and start the 2020 pepper season with just 34 plants, things have changed a bit. Since that post, I’ve decided to keep my overflow plot for a handful of plants – nothing as grand as I have done the past couple of years. So with that decision made, I opted to sow 40 pepper varieties this past Friday.

That’s still down from last season, and could get smaller depending on how the germination of some of these hybrid cross superhots go. I could end up with less plants or the same number, but with a different ratio than planned. I also plan to be more critical and selective of which fruit I plan to keep for later so that I’m not daunted by another freezer full of peppers.

Also, as you’ll see in the below photos, I didn’t start this season using the double-cup method as I had initially planned. I ended up finding another box of three inch pots that I had stored away in the basement and it just made sense to continue with those instead of leaving them in their box to do nothing.

Just like the past couple of years, I’m sticking to my blend of Nature’s Care organic potting mix, Jiffy seed starting mix, perlite and a touch of MI Gardner’s Trifecta+. It worked well last season and I’m hoping it does just as well for 2020. The end mixture is light and fluffy with plenty of room for root growhth.

You can’t see it in the below photos, but I’ve started at least two seeds per variety in each pot in the hopes of increasing the percentage of seedlings. I feel that this will help get me to the planned list, especially with a few of this fairly unstable varieties.

This is always an exciting and nerve wracking time of year. I can’t wait to see what pops through the soil over the next few weeks and which varieties get to make it to the great outdoors come April.