Hello folks,

Last year I bought an ornamental black pearl pepper for it's lovely dark foliage. I collected some seeds from it when the peppers were red and wrinkly (like I would for my Gernika peppers which I grow from seed each year with great success) but had no success germinating them. However, I noticed these little sprouts in the garden a week ago, not too far from where I had set its planter last year. I might have even thrown a few peppers into the mulch and forgotten about it. I've never seen the birds eating the peppers but they might have spread them too. These look an awful lot like pepper seedlings and the seed shells they cast off looked 'peppery' too but I just don't recall planting these and would be surprised they survived our bad snows this year. If they are peppers do I need to thin them out yet? I would be so excited to have this plant back this year!

Any recommendations for collecting the seeds since I had no success when I harvested myself?