As you can see below a few of my seedlings are becoming a little leggy. Since they germinated they’ve just had a regular 11W energy saving bulb over them as they’ve been kept in a dark room. I’m not too worried about this as I’ll just plant them a bit deeper when it comes time to pot them on.
In the meantime, to try and combat the legginess, I’ve decided it is time to get them under my 125Watt Nuturlite. I’ve started off with the light about 25cm above the seedlings. I’ll gradually lower this by a few cm over the next few days to avoid scorching/shocking the plants.
Out of the 20 seeds I initially planted 12 have germinated so far. To ensure a good succession of plants I planted a few more seedlings over the weekend, mainly Chinense varieties again. Here’s what I planted:
- 3 x Orange Rocoto
- 3 x Lemon Drop
- 3 x Peach Habanero
- 1 x Habanero Papafina
- 4 Naga Jolokia
I planted these seeds in these coir pellets which I’ve not used before. They’re basically small discs about the size of a watch face that expand when watered. Once they’ve risen to about 4cm you simply pop the seed in the small hole in the top.
The beauty is that they are freestanding so when it’s time to pot on you can simply plant the whole thing and not disturb the seedlings roots at all. I’d definitely use them again.
The 4 Naga Jolokias were planted using the wet tissue method discussed here. They tend to take quite a while to germinate so thought i’d try this to speed them up a bit. I’ll report back how they get on in a few days time…