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.

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.



I tried starting my own and gave up after the first year. I plant
everything I can from seed straight into the ground (turnip, peas,
radish, carrot as well as onions from sets and potatoes from seed
spuds). I buy tomatoes, corn, cucumber and celery from the nursery...a
tray of nine usually...all for under $20. If nothing else, it's worth
saving the mess.

..

Zone 5b in Canada's Far East.

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

In article .com,
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.

James,
I also enjoy peppers, mostly sweet, but when I was freaking out over the
slow germination of my peppers last year, I ran into an injunction, on
several web sites, against using peat moss for germination. The
following is an example:

http://www.ecoseeds.com/Pepper.growing.tips.html

"NEVER, NEVER, NEVER ever use peat pots, peat pellets, or potting soil
that is mostly peat."

"Everyone always asks "Why??" ---We don't know---It may be that the peat
is too acidic, or that there is something naturally in peat that
inhibits pepper seed germination? All we know, is that whenever anyone
has had problems with pepper seed germination, when the seeds have been
proven to have good germination when tested on top of moist cotton--part
of the problem has always been peat pellets, or potting soil that was
mostly peat. Miracle Grow Cactus mix is peat-free, as is the Supersoil
brand."
------
This naturally unnerved me a bit as the finishing touch to my pepper
nursery had been a light sprinkling of peat moss over the tray. After
about two weeks the peppers stuck their heads up through the soil and I
was in business. I still have habaneros from last year in the freezer. I
only use them in making Pico de Gallo because I can't get enough heat
from the jalapenos (but I prefer the flavor of jalapenos). I usually use
one habanero / 8 jalapenos. Good stuff. Of course, there are
consequences :-O

Good luck,

- Bill
Cloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 07:56:54 -0700, 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.

I had a complete failure also. I tried heirloom tomatoes and Tuscan
melons. The melons did OK for few weeks then keeled over and died. Only a
few tomatoes sprouted and none of them have made it past the spindly
little shoot phase. I have two types of grow lights, 50W incandescents
which are 30" inches from the plants, and a florescent that is mounted in
a desk lamp that is about 10" from the plants. The only thing that I have
that's doing really well is an onion that sprouted in my refrigerator,
I'll plant it in the ground in the next few weeks even though growing
onions is pointless.

Has anyone ever seen flats of heirloom tomatoes? I was really hoping to
have something different this year. All the local garden centers ever
have is the usual commercial varieties like Early Girls, Big Boys and
Romas.

In article ,
General Schvantzkoph wrote:

I had a complete failure also. . . . Only a
few tomatoes sprouted and none of them have made it past the spindly
little shoot phase. I have two types of grow lights, 50W incandescents
which are 30" inches from the plants, and a florescent that is mounted in
a desk lamp that is about 10" from the plants.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to square this up but in the mean
time, everything I've read about grow lights says to get them down as
close as possible to the germination trays, without actually touching
the plants. For safeties' sake, don't get closer than an inch or two to
the plant or, you may fry it (a real disappointing part of the learning
curve:(.

Once the plants are germinated and leafed-out, you can pull the plug on
the hot pad (Low).

- Bill
Cloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)

General Schvantzkoph wrote:


Has anyone ever seen flats of heirloom tomatoes? I was really hoping to
have something different this year. All the local garden centers ever
have is the usual commercial varieties like Early Girls, Big Boys and
Romas.

Forget the big box places and look for a mom & pop nursery. In my area
the mom & pop places have tremendous quality plants because they are
grown locally and not trucked in from wherever the cheapest supplier is
located. One specializes in tomatoes and probably has 20 of the heirloom
varieties and dozens of others. Also even though the plants are higher
quality they sell for less than half of the big box places.

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:12:31 -0400, George wrote:

General Schvantzkoph wrote:


Has anyone ever seen flats of heirloom tomatoes? I was really hoping to
have something different this year. All the local garden centers ever
have is the usual commercial varieties like Early Girls, Big Boys and
Romas.

Forget the big box places and look for a mom & pop nursery. In my area
the mom & pop places have tremendous quality plants because they are
grown locally and not trucked in from wherever the cheapest supplier is
located. One specializes in tomatoes and probably has 20 of the heirloom
varieties and dozens of others. Also even though the plants are higher
quality they sell for less than half of the big box places.

All of the local garden shops in my town seem to carry the same
commercial varieties. I live in Massachusetts, near the NH border. During
the non-winter months my girlfriend and I like to take long day trips
around New England on the weekends so I'd have no objection to driving a
hundred miles or more in any direction (except East which would put me in
the Atlantic) to find a place with an interesting variety of non-standard
vegetable flats. If anyone has any suggestions for places in Mass, Maine,
NH, Rhode Island, Conn or Vermont I'd appreciate it.

"James" wrote in message
oups.com...
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.


My jalapenos love the heat. They kinda lay there in cool weather.
--
Dave

Apathy and denial are close cousins

General Schvantzkoph wrote:
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 14:12:31 -0400, George wrote:

General Schvantzkoph wrote:


Has anyone ever seen flats of heirloom tomatoes? I was really hoping to
have something different this year. All the local garden centers ever
have is the usual commercial varieties like Early Girls, Big Boys and
Romas.
Forget the big box places and look for a mom & pop nursery. In my area
the mom & pop places have tremendous quality plants because they are
grown locally and not trucked in from wherever the cheapest supplier is
located. One specializes in tomatoes and probably has 20 of the heirloom
varieties and dozens of others. Also even though the plants are higher
quality they sell for less than half of the big box places.

All of the local garden shops in my town seem to carry the same
commercial varieties. I live in Massachusetts, near the NH border. During
the non-winter months my girlfriend and I like to take long day trips
around New England on the weekends so I'd have no objection to driving a
hundred miles or more in any direction (except East which would put me in
the Atlantic) to find a place with an interesting variety of non-standard
vegetable flats. If anyone has any suggestions for places in Mass, Maine,
NH, Rhode Island, Conn or Vermont I'd appreciate it.

I am in PA which is a little more of a drive.

If you are looking in a garden shop you are in the wrong place. I would
bet there are good places to buy stuff in your area but you may have to
do a little asking around to find them. In my area the 2 best places
are no where near the interstate and are family farm type places on a 2
lane road.

On Apr 29, 10:56 am, 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.

I guess you've already tried turning up the heat around the
germinated baby plants by wrapping an electric blanket around the
chilly side, but open to the light. We did that when we lived in zone
5a in upstateNY and couldn't afford to heat a whole room to keep a few
plants warm.


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.

Hm, hadn't thought of it that way. We still start some favorites
from seed. It's much easier where we are now (NC) to grow 6 or so
varieties of tomatoes ourselves. We buy a few other dependable
varieties locally as plants. After many years of starting ten times
as many plants as we had room for, we have learned to keep the P.I.Y.
operation small. Mostly.

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.

In general, in the US it probably doesn't *pay* to grow peppers at
all. By the time you can grow them in a garden the local farmers
market is practically giving them away. Same with tomatoes.

It is probably cheaper to buy good plants locally, too. But a good
reason to grow them-- and a good reason to start your own- is so you
can have varieties unavailable at the market or greenhouse.


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.

Do what you enjoy. Treat gardening as a hobby and enjoy it-- If
you look at it as a business or work- then you'd be better off working
part time a few hours a week and buying from the market.

Jim

In article ,
Jim Elbrecht wrote:

In general, in the US it probably doesn't *pay* to grow peppers at
all. By the time you can grow them in a garden the local farmers
market is practically giving them away. Same with tomatoes.

Ah, a cup of coffee and a good morning rant.

Jim, have you ever tasted a grilled red bell pepper minutes from the
garden? Have you ever tasted fresh-picked home-grown lettuce? Have you
ever tasted fresh-picked parsnips? I find it hard to believe that you
have. Super markets aside, even the farmers of farmers markets have to
grow for quantity. Fast grown plants just don't have the flavor of
plants that have been allowed to develop in a more natural environment
e.g. home grown lettuce has a bitter edge which you won't find in fast
grown lettuce. Growing at home allows you to have vegetables, when you
want them, in the quantity you want. As you correctly noted, home
gardening lets you pick the type of vegetable or fruit you want, which
leads to comparing and contrasting and, good dinner conversation which
is the sine qua non of good dining. (I think we've all had enough
conversation about those bar-sinistered types at 1600 Pennsylvannia Ave.)

Additionally, the provenance of our food has lately intruded into the
headlines. If you produce your own fruit and vegetables, you will have a
much better grasp of the quantity of escherichia coli (= fresh manure),
organophosphates or, glyphosate, in and on your food, than if you buy
them from a friendly stranger. At the very least, during the summer
months you can give your liver a rest from detoxifying the vegetables
that you eat.

So, yes Jim, from a strictly bottom line appraisal (future health costs
aside), gardening doesn't make much sense. Esthetically, though, there's
not much that can compare except music and, visual arts.

- Bill
Cloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)

James wrote:
[snip]

Children?

On May 3, 10:54 am, William Rose wrote:
In article ,
Jim Elbrecht wrote:

In general, in the US it probably doesn't *pay* to grow peppers at
all. By the time you can grow them in a garden the local farmers
market is practically giving them away. Same with tomatoes.

Ah, a cup of coffee and a good morning rant.

Jim, have you ever tasted a grilled red bell pepper minutes from the
garden? Have you ever tasted fresh-picked home-grown lettuce? Have you
ever tasted fresh-picked parsnips? I find it hard to believe that you
have. Super markets aside, even the farmers of farmers markets have to
grow for quantity. Fast grown plants just don't have the flavor of
plants that have been allowed to develop in a more natural environment
e.g. home grown lettuce has a bitter edge which you won't find in fast
grown lettuce. Growing at home allows you to have vegetables, when you
want them, in the quantity you want. As you correctly noted, home
gardening lets you pick the type of vegetable or fruit you want, which
leads to comparing and contrasting and, good dinner conversation which
is the sine qua non of good dining. (I think we've all had enough
conversation about those bar-sinistered types at 1600 Pennsylvannia Ave.)

Additionally, the provenance of our food has lately intruded into the
headlines. If you produce your own fruit and vegetables, you will have a
much better grasp of the quantity of escherichia coli (= fresh manure),
organophosphates or, glyphosate, in and on your food, than if you buy
them from a friendly stranger. At the very least, during the summer
months you can give your liver a rest from detoxifying the vegetables
that you eat.

So, yes Jim, from a strictly bottom line appraisal (future health costs
aside), gardening doesn't make much sense. Esthetically, though, there's
not much that can compare except music and, visual arts.

- Bill
Cloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)

(coming out of lurkdom)
Bill is absolutely right. Gardening isn't always the cheapest
alternative to
buying produce--it's certainly a lot of work too, if it's done right.
But there
really is no comparison to the taste of fresh-picked produce, and I
like knowing
that the crop hasn't been sprayed with pesticides, and the produce has
been handled in a sanitary fashion.

Sherry