James wrote:
Used peat pellets and planted pepper seeds on 4/5. Using my heating
pad I was able to get half of them sprouting after 10+ days. Now 24
days later they still don't have the true leaves yet.

Since I keep my house at 60F or less and don't have grow light system
set up, they grow very slowly. Guess I need to really put some money
into a germination system or else turn up the heat to get a good
seedling crop. So it's much wiser for me to just buy from the
nursery. Even if i buy the mail order bare root plants from southern
nurseries, I would still save money and have bigger transplants. That
is until high gas prices make shipping too expensive.

Here's a description of my grow light system. $15.00 steel shelf system
with four shelves. Two fluorescent shop lights, one over each of two
shelves. One daylight and one kitchen and bath fluorescent tube in each,
total cost about $25.00. Heating pad designed for starting plants,
nearly 50 bux but worth it. Cheap domed starter set from Walmart, two
each at about 4 bux each. Shelf sits in my office. House heated to about
67F in winter.

With this setup I can start all the plants we want in our 25X17 garden.
Generally it's tomatoes, sweet and hot chiles, eggplant, sometimes in
the fall we start broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower. Got a 6X9 pantry
full of canned and frozen food, enough to feed two people and a small
dog for nearly a year.

George