Peppers

Hi pandas66

Try here or for something hotter here

Have fun

Does seem like a gardening forum is needed (hint hint)

Panda, you'll need to get them started pretty soon. Have a read of the seed packets and try to pick one that says early maturing...a smaller fruited one like Gypsy might be good too. If you're after chillis, this month's Kitchen Garden has free seeds, mixed chillis, and mixed salad leaves, which are excellent for window boxes/containers.

To start them off you don't need anything more complicated than a pot or small tray, some peat-free multi-purpose or whatever seed growing medium you can get hold of (coir, for example). Fill pot to within an inch or so of the top, water and leave to drain. Place the seeds individually and well spaced out on top, and just cover with more of the same compost - about 5mm at the very most. I don't firm it down much.

If you have a heated propagator that's ideal, otherwise pop a clear plastic bag over/around, blow it up and fix with an elastic band/tie to make an effective propagator. Leave somewhere warm - south facing windowsill or if that's too cold in your house (should ideally be minimum 20ish) try the airing cupboard or on top of the fridge. Check every day and as soon as the seedlings show (little white hooks first, followed by leaves) move them to as bright a spot as possible.

That'll get you started, now go and get some seeds!

I tried growing peppers last year. Something ate my one and only flower and the rain finished off the rest of the plant (my tomatoes were rubbish cause of the rain too.)

So the best advise I can give is make sure they don't get over watered because they don't like it. DH is builing me a mini glass house thing to protect them.

Those mini greenhouse thingies are great, I used them to start my tomatoes off last year and I had a wonderful crop. Another thing I discovered about tomatoes was to put them in pots outside. We had a huge problem with the rain last year, our bungalow was flooded and electrics damaged, but my tomatoes did alright, ( no lights for a week but we could eat, LOL ) I had them in buckets bought at the local florist's for 10p.
I also grow tomatoes, herbs and salad leaves in hanging baskets and containers. Use an old sweater or better still an old woollen skirt to make hanging basket liners, they hold the moisture in and the birds don't eat them.

moggins wrote:

Aldi are currently selling the plastic greenhouse jobbies for £6.99. Very handy idea I thought!

Thanks for that, I'll pop off to Aldi and see if they've got any left.