How long have they been germinating?

What are the temps of the soil. 86 deg. would be good.

Are you using a grow light or heating mats? Warmth is about the best addition to a seed-starting set up.

Tomatoes germinate in 3-4 days for me....they're ridiculously easy. I won't even bother to start any until the third week of March - since they rapidly outpace the peppers. The Jalapeño and Bell peppers also germinate very easily and reliably.

The other peppers will tend to take longer. To hedge your bets, you might wish to start another tray of seeds. Or you could just wait. You didn't mention how long they've been in the tray, but many of us wait three weeks or more for germination.

Josh

Place the seeds in damp paper towels inside a zip lock bag.

The seeds were started on the 10th I think. I have read that some peppers take longer, but started to wonder when the jalapeno and Jupiter Bell jumped up nice and green.

The tomatoes do seem easy. Germinated like weeds in one week.

I originally had the seed tray on the top shelf of our TV armoure (sp?). I thought the heat from electronics would be enough. Then i moved the whole tray out to a raised bed covered with a framed plastic sheeting "green house." I don't have a heat source out there, so I bring the tray in to overnight indoors. The El Cheapo thermometer hanging in the green house stays between 75 and 90 during daylight. Temp is usually dipping to 68-70 when I bring them inside.

I guess I will have to learn patience and see what happens. May hedge my bet and plant a couple seeds of each in peat pots.

Unless I know a certain variety is a very slow germinator, I will restart after about 12-14 days. I will likely keep the original one for another week or so, but I will plant another round as backup. I very rarely have any that poke out after a week and a half. Most varieties pop in 5-9 days for me.

Keep the soil moist with some type of covering as a humidity dome or clear cling wrap. You shouldn't have to rewater for a long time if you keep them covered. Also, make sure your soil isn't tooooo wet to start with. That will cause the seeds to die and rot before they can germinate.
Bruce

I hate it when I don't know if seeds are going to germinate or not, so I recommend a method like the one proposed by MorugaMan. I do it a little differently using the small plastic containers that take-out fast food places use for salad dressing, etc. I take a strip of paper towel, fold it so it's 3 layers thick and about 1 inch square, and put it in the plastic container. Put the seeds on the paper and mist it. It's easy to see when the seeds pop without even taking the lid off. As soon as I see the white root appear I lift out the seed on the tip of a paring knife and put it in soil about 1/4 inch deep. Another advantage is that I don't end up with empty cells in the 6-packs because I know the seed was growing when I put it in the soil.

Here's a picture of some Kung Pao seeds I did a germination test on.

This post was edited by kentishman on Wed, Feb 19, 14 at 16:31

kentishman, I like it.

me too.

Kevin

Looks like a great method kentishman. That's a good reason to not germinate in dirt because you don't know for sure if it's growing or dried out unless you dig it up.