Tom

my new MOST FAVORITE WAY EVER to germinate--in bottoms of cardboard milk cartons (cut the bottom 2" off, then lots of drainage holes), a mix of one part powdered coir to six parts turface. that's al's seedling mix (he uses chopped sphagnum moss). it's AWESOME! the seedlings are so vigorous...

Michael, what the heck is powdered coir and what is it used for? I have plenty of Turface but I'm a little lost as you also mention sphagnum moss and somehow this thing isn't coming together in my mind :-(

I've always been happy with my little Burpee Grow cubes but I'm trying to be open-minded to trying new things.

Tom

try it out with peat if you don't have finely chopped sphagnum or coir... and you should order a bunch of supreme neem and coir bricks from gh!

I am familiar with coir but I've never heard of powdering it, and so far I have not been wild about the idea of screening Turface...can you post some pictures with growth rates?

With 2 year old seed the germination rate seems to go down to about 75-80% for me, with 3 year old seed slightly less, so I thought why not try the paper towel method....

Vanbrat, how long were your sprouts and how deep did you plant them. Like I said, these things are only a 1/4" tall, how do I bury them? I've put them back in the open ziploc for now trying to get them to a length of about an inch so I'd have something to bury.

I am impressed so far, we'll see after transplant....

Tom

why not try various depths? my experience (fwiw, i'm no propagating maven by any stretch of the imagination): very small seedlings, esp tough ones from solanaceae--their stems aren't very differentiated. that's why you can (but shouldn't!) plant tomato seedlings very deeply and they have no problem setting roots where once leaf petioles grew.

i'm trying to simplify my seedling setup. i used to up-plant my seedlings repeatedly, often as many as four times. now i'm going to do what christine does--seeds in a seedling mix, in a low container... let 'em grow till they're big enough to transplant into 20oz styros (christine uses smaller ones)... then into the garden. another tip i got from christine is to rip the bottom half of the styro off, and jam the whole thing into the ground, cup and plant together. great since you have a built-in cutworm collar, a label, and it's easier to water very small seedlings.

I found out like you the easiest to germinate are from fresh seeds. But,I germinated some pepper seeds that I had for 10 years or more.

Let us know how your peppers come out.

Silvia

Yikes Michael, I pot-up once from my 3oz cups to my cut off 2L coke bottles, then set in the garden so that's close to what Christine does, the only difference is that seeing through the coke bottles allows me to watch how quickly the mix dries out, thus I know when to water. It also allows me to see when the roots creep out to the edge, which is my cue to set the plants soon....

Tom, I hope that by now you transplanted the seedlings.

Silvia, they're too small to transplant, only a 1/4" in length...unless I can get them to at least 1" I have nothing to transplant. I'm not without seedlings though, the ones below were started at the same time, including some pepino seeds Veronica gave me.

I dropped the lignt down on these seedlings when I went to take this picture and busted one of the Beefmaster maters :-(

Tom

Nice looking set up and seedlings. It looks like you have it all figured out.

Silvia

If anyone else has any experience with this I would love to hear your opinion.

Christine

Silvia - that Beefmaster stem is now reaching back toward the light, "U" shaped stem above the insult...I told you Beefmasters were hearty :-)

Christine - that sounds really cool, I hope it works.

I have plenty of pepper seedlings so I think I'll just continue this little experiment. Right now they are still in the opened bag as I really want the stems longer before trying to transplant them. I'm thinking of spraying the paper towel with a little seaweed fertilizer to see if a very mild nutrient might pick things up some.

Tom

I took your lead and am trying my luck with the paper towel process. It seems that no matter what I try, my pepper plants never survive.

I have a pic of "my" seed storage process. Hardly 'high-tech', but from lots of prior biz travel and room-service meals, I've accummulated a lot of small glass jars that seem like a good storage option. ;-)

Do you like hot peppers? If so, the dried ones that I have from Pike market in Seattle germinate well. I have a whole stack of different hot peppers. It probably going to last me a lifetime! lol

Silvia

Yes, I do. I don't like the hot, hot, hot ones (ie: habaneros), but enjoy a little heat now and then.

Funny...I used to live in Seattle (as of 3 yrs. ago...) and went to Pike's frequently. I enjoyed watching the fish throwers and buying veggies there.

I remember you talked about Seattle one time, that is why I said about the hot peppers.

I collect spices, and the Pike's market is one good place to get them.

And I have dried hot peppers for all the tastes. They are specifically label with place of origin and heat index and flavors. Some of them are very fruity and at the same time hot. I keep them in their original cellophane wrappers. The ones that are in powder, I keep them in small glass containers.

I keep all my seeds away from light, in a well ventilated, cool area, in a filing cabinet.

Silvia

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No one else commented on this, am I the only one on this thread that still buries their seedlings 80% of the stem on transplant. I do it when I move from 3oz to 8oz to 6 in clay to the final spot. Is that a no-no??

bernie

maybe i'm wrong, but i wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the benefits of deep planting. personally, i don't do it, and i bet my tomatoes are the better for it.

How about Tom, he always tests different ideas?

Let's get a couple of us to try both ways with everything else as common as we can get it.

bernie

Michale - I think my mater's do better buried deep, but then again since I'm using the 2L soda bottles cut in half after the seedling pot-up I can SEE what's happening with the soil moisture and root growth before the final set 8-) Pepper's, on the other hand, don't seem to do well with this method as they are more than willing to damp-off when buried, whether you can see the soil dynamics or not.... Point being that I don't think all solanaceae are born the same, just an observation on my part but maters like wet feet, peppers don't :-(

Bernie - thanks for the mangos ;-)

Tom

Silvia: That's really neat that you have a hot pepper spice collection! Pikes' is such a great place to find variety especially in peppers. Lots of Asian varieties that are hard to find in Florida.

I'm recalling some of the fabulous meals I've seen pictures of that you've posted. I bet it's pretty hard to find someone who won't eat what you serve no matter how hot & spicy! :-)

Tom, looking forward to seeing the fruits on those pepper seedlings. Nice seed sprouting setup.

Christine

next spring, bernie, let's plan on experimenting with container-grown tomatoes, seedlings at deeper depths... sounds fun.

John--- I only plant peppers slightly deeper with mulch only.

Christine

that said, as usual, your tomatoes are gorgeous and make me green with envy.

Looking forward to your tomato photo results next spring.

Christine

Observation, when I look at your pics vs. Christine's I see lots of sun in hers and lots of shade in yours for the tomatoes, might be that while yours don't fry you have considerably more damp-off problems with burying them, just as with me while the ones on the shady end of the garden don't fry they sure suffer more mildew problems....

What's that old saying, location, location, location....

Looking forward to seeing everyone next Saturday!

Tom

i hear tomatoes are the exception to the "dont plant to deep" rule and can be planted a full 2/3 under ground.

Getting ready to go out for dinner, too dark now anyway for pictures, will post pics tomorrow.

1) Take knife and slit wrapper, pull off coke bottle
2) Use knife to puncture 2" slit horizontally through middle of coke bottle
3) Push scissors through slit in coke bottle and cut top half of bottle off
4) Hold bottom half of coke bottle with one hand and with other hand angle scissors at 45 degree angle cutting off top of bottom section until you reach about 2" above horizontal line around bottom section of bottle where they obviously seemed the plastic together, then turn horizontally and cut the rest off (leaves about a third of the bottom section of the coke bottle).
5) Drill 3/8" to 1/2" holes at 45 degree angles in the five points of the bottom supports.

Tom

Christine

LTY, here's a few pictures from last year....

TOM

SB50 - I just guide the vines through the top of my 6' cages and then let them hang down where ever they want to go until they are finished. I have to admit I like Raybo's (Container Gardening forum) 54" Wally World Glamos cages set one on top of the other with 1/8" wire rope clips.

This can be done with either the Glamos 42" or 54" cages, or with the Gardman 54" plastic-coated cages. I went bargain hunting today and got twenty two of the Gardman 54" cages at Target for 50% off, $6 each :-)

BTW, I think the peppers germinated in Burpee peat cubes or MG Organic Choice in 3oz. solo cups did much better than the ones germinated in the paper towels.

Tom