If like me you don’t get round to planting your peppers early then there are a couple of ways you can speed up the germination and growth of your chilli plants in the early stages of their life.
In this post we’ll take a look at how you can speed up the germination of your chilli peppers, helping you get your chilli growing season back on track.
Some chilli pepper varieties are renowned for being slow to germinate. While common varieties such as Cayenne or Jalapeño can germinate in just a few days, harder to grow varieties such as Naga or Bhut Jolokia can take up to a couple of months to germinate.
How I Speed Up Germination
Seeds love warm constant heat. Giving them this will help to speed up the germination process significantly. Unless you leave your central heating on all day and night it can be very hard to supply your seeds with a constant heat.
I use a heat mat designed for a reptile vivarium. These mats emit a constant warm temperature and use very little power and are intended to keep snakes and other reptiles nice and warm in their tanks. I discovered a while ago that they also make great heat mats for chillies and other plants!
I simply use standard 24 cell seed trays and regular potting compost (sieved) to plant my seeds. On each heat mat i can place two seed trays. I simply plug the mat in and bingo, my seeds have a steady stream of heat at the perfect temperature required for germination.
I have found that using these heat maps can speed up germination by as much as four times. In addition I believe that they also increase germination rates.
One word of caution – be sure to check your seed trays moisture levels more often as the extra heat will mean they are more likely to dry out quicker and need more watering.
Have you got any tips to help speed up the germination of your plants? If so please let us know by leaving a comment below.