The First Pepper Plants of the 2018 Season Have Arrived

February 12, 2018 | Article Topics: , , ,

I had originally scheduled the start of my season for this past weekend, but a flood of jealousy at seeing everyone else’s baby pepper plants on social media got the best of me and I shifted a few things. Last week I planted seeds for 28 different varieties of peppers and just a scant 8-9 days later I’ve go some breaking through the ground.

Sugar Rush Peach seedling

The little Sugar Rush Peach above was the first to emerge this past Saturday, a scant seven days after going into the ground. I’m not sure if that’s normal or not, but both of the sets of seeds I started for this variety are now up and absorbing light.

In the next photo, we see the second Sugar Rush Peach, as well as Aji Lemon, Craig’s Grande Jalepeno and off in the upper left there’s jus the hint of a Purple Jalepeno starting to break through the surface. I’m pretty excited to see so a variety of seedlings popping up in close proximity there.

More pepper seedlings

Next, we’ve got one of two Carolina Reapers that broke through just eight days after starting them last weekend. Now, I was under the impression that these seeds were going to take quite a while to germinate — upwards of a month in some cases. I’m not quite sure what to make of that right now. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how they develop through the season.

Carolina Reaper Seedling

The below photo is quite interesting as I don’t believe I’ve grown a plant that’s come from the ground with three initial leaves. That may be the norm for this Yellow Cardi Scorpion, but having never grown them prior to this year, I don’t know. Regardless, it’s a cute little bugger. Just behind it is the other Carolina Reaper and to the left of that a “mutant 7 pot” that I received from a fellow pepper grower. I’m really curious to see how that one ends up.

superhot pepper seedlings

And lastly (for now), we’ve got one of two habaneros coming up as of this morning — the other is your standard orange variety from seed I collected last year. This is the white variety and I can’t wait for this one to get growing. I’ve never grown this particular variety and can’t wait to add it to the Habaneroville raised bed when the weather gets warmer.

white habanero pepper seedling

Concerns

One major concern that I have with the start of this season is my lighting set up. This is my first crack at using artificial lighting to start seeds and I went small and fairly cheap with clamp pot lights that are housing LED bulbs. They are producing a decent level of kelvin and lumen, but with the cone shape of the fixture, the lights is fairly targeted on the seedlings below them. Some of the plants sit at the periphery of the light.

I’m not going to panic just yet, but I will be keeping a close eye on the seedlings as they progress. I suppose I can just rotate their positions on a regular basis, but that could become a royal pain after a while.