Starting Peppers

Nothing fights cabin fever better than planning the garden. We can look at seed catalogs forever (Dennis is still looking them over even after we have our seeds for the year). Then comes a series of layout plans... "Where should we put the tomatoes this year?" Rotation helps avoid the depletion of soil nutrients but when space is limited you just have to put the peas where they can climb. It all leads to things to think about. It helps us look in a forward direction. The only problem is that the part of spring that includes delicate plants living outside is a solid six weeks away. But we can still get started! Let's Go!

Now it's still a bit too early to start tomatoes-- they'll get too big and start to suffer before we could move them outside (we'll start them in another week or two). But this year we decided to give our peppers a head start because they grow s o o . . . slo o o wly and the growing season in Michigan is significantly shorter than places where peppers would actually enjoy growing. For instance pepper seeds like the soil to be at least 70 degrees in order to germinate-- it's not even seventy degrees inside our house-- we place the seedling flats on heating pads to accomplish this. By the time Michigan is 70 degrees the time for starting peppers is long past... we like peppers (and salsa) ... so we help them out.

In case you're following along it's a good idea when starting seeds in a flat -- especially on a heating mat-- to use the clear plastic dome to avoid evaporation and everything drying out.




In no time at all it starts to look like a little rain forest minus the plants and wildlife and anything else that would be interesting in a rain forest -- it looks like a very boring rain forest-- but since it's a rain forest on my table it's exciting enough for me. I can never resist the urge to tap the top to make it 'rain' ... oddly satisfying... oddly.


I started the seeds on Monday the 8th of February. I planted ten seeds of each of these six varieties: Serrano (hot pepper), Pablano (medium hot pepper), Georgia Flame (ummm.. hot pepper), Buran (red sweet pepper), Purple Beauty (dark red/purple bell pepper), and Healthy (a red bell pepper said to do well in northern climes). Yes that's potentially 60 plants... chances are some will not get started and some may die along the way ... or else we'll have a fun time trying to find places to plant all of these!

And wouldn't you know that exactly one week after planting we got our first babies?




Six Serranos and three Purple Beauties on Monday the 15th and as of today we're up to eight Serranos, six Purple Beauties, and two Burans visible.

Some are bigger than in this photo (it being a single day old). We have a light on them so hopefully they don't try to get too tall and straggly from reaching to find light. Dennis knows the term for this getting tall and straggly from looking for light business... but I don't... so I'll ask him again. It's one of those many things that you're not surprised that the process has a name, it's just weird to think that anyone knows the name and has it readily available for recall.

**note-- "etiolation" is the term for plant baby gangliness-- I'll try to remember that.

Ahhh, they grow up so fast i just have to remind myself to take the time and enjoy this stage. Isn't that what all mother's say? Or is told when she's having difficulty with her three year old?