Seed Starting 2021: The Pepper Edition
- gwynnemiddleton
- Apr 5, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 16
If I had told my teenage self one day I’d be obsessing about the germination rate of pepper seeds, I would have shaken my head. Younger Gwynne was not interested in peppers of any sort. Sweet or spicy? Neither, thank you very much.
Fast forward 25 years, and I’m elbow deep in pepper cultivation tips and feeling particularly proud of my Summer 2020 pepper harvest from the Furrow & Trowel garden. Colorado’s Front Range climate is inhospitable to starting warm-season vegetable seeds directly in the soil until late May. Knowing when and how to best start seeds indoors goes a long way toward successful germination and then healthy and sizable seedlings that can be transplanted outside when the threat of snow is gone.
When to Start Peppers Indoors
After several growing seasons in Colorado, I've refined the timing for many of the warm-season plants I cultivate for my backyard garden and sell each May to fellow local gardeners. What's the indoor pepper seed-starting sweet spot in my area of Colorado?
Through trial and error, I've learned that mid-March is the ideal seed-starting time for most sweet and spicy pepper varieties I aim to plant outdoors during Memorial Day weekend. Because some pepper seeds can take up to three weeks to germinate, you want to give yourself enough time on the front end of seed starting so they can reach at least six inches in height before transplanting into the garden.
You can certainly start pepper plants even earlier than I did, but remember that you’ll likely have to pot up seedlings more than I do to account for their need for additional soil and space for roots. This year I started seeds on March 14. By setting up the ideal indoor growing conditions, I had almost 100% germination.
Warm Soil, Good Lighting, Happy Pepper Seeds.
Pepper seeds need to believe it’s warm enough outside to give them a fighting chance for survival. To successfully germinate these seeds, the soil often needs to be at least 75 degrees Fahrenheit and consistently moist. A few years ago, I shared an in-depth post about general indoor seed starting best practices. I have a solid indoor grow light set up for seed starting, but it wasn’t until I made a small investment in germination heat mats that my pepper growing game went next level. I am also a strong believer in maintaining consistent moisture in the soil to encourage germination, so I use self-watering plastic humidity dome seed trays or lay plastic wrap over the soil until the seeds sprout.
Cultivating Familiar AND New Seed Varieties Will Keep You Motivated.
Seed starting is not hard, but it does take time, patience, and a commitment to paying attention to the process. My love of food and learning about and experiencing fruits and vegetables from other cultural traditions is a main reason I garden. I’m a sucker for interesting vegetable and fruit varieties that I can’t find at stores and that promise new-to-me flavor.
This year I started a variety of peppers I’m hoping will result in lots of dried spicy goodness to enjoy during the eight months of cold weather we usually experience in Colorado. Here are some of the peppers I'm trying out in 2021.
Pasilla Bajio
After a three-year stint in central Texas where I learned the differences between Tex-Mex and Mexican cuisine, I fell in love with the immense diversity of Mexican cooking. It didn’t take long for me to slide down the chili pepper rabbit hole.
While I love spicy food, I’m a flavor fanatic first, so this year I’m excited to try my hand at growing, harvesting, and drying pasilla peppers. Used often in moles, it makes sense this variety I’ve started originates in Mexico. I’ve yet to find these fresh, when they are known as chilaca, so I hope I can harvest enough for immediate use and to preserve.
Zapotec Jalapeño
Marketed as a gourmet jalapeño, the Zapotec Jalapeño is an ancient heirloom from Oaxaca, Mexico. When mature the plants reach two-to-three feet tall and produce one-to-2-inch pepper pods. I’ve been promised “smoky sweet flavor and heat.” Yes, please.
Baker Creek’s photographer deserves a raise because one look at these beautiful peppers with light brown crack lines, and I knew I needed them in my life.
Habanero Pepper
I started this Territorial Seed Company variety from a package I purchased in 2018, and they still germinated when I sowed them last month. (Thanks, heat mat.) If you're not familiar with habaneros, they are smoking hot.
Last year I was blown away by how bushy this plant grew as well as its prolific harvest. My plants reached about three feet tall when mature, and I harvested peppers until October last year. This was particularly unusual pepper plant behavior considering we had a freak blizzard on Labor Day and plenty of chilly nights before garden season officially ended. These peppers are great in fermented hot sauce and dried and mixed with less spicy dried peppers to add to soups or to sprinkle on pizza.
Sugar Rush Peach Pepper
Another Baker Creek impulse buy (look at those curves!), this variety was bred for a mix of sweet, tropical flavor and smoky heat. It’s touted as a snacking pepper and has origins in the aji pepper, so I’m hoping this means I’m in for fresh snacks while harvesting and can add new flavor angles to my salsa recipes. The plants can grow up to five feet tall, though, so I'll need to make sure they don’t crowd out smaller pepper plants.
Sweet Hot Red Peppers
A neighbor traded these saved seeds for some seeds I’d collected two years ago, and I grew them for the first time in the garden last year. I don’t know the official name for this variety, but the plants grew to about three feet tall and produced long red peppers that tasted like a mix between a bell pepper and a Fresno chili. I saved seeds from a particularly sizable pepper pod last year and am experimenting to see how these produce this year.
100% germination rate, so that’s promising!
Orange Sweet Mini Bell Peppers
These seeds also come from the neighbor mentioned above. These two-and-a-half foot tall plants produced so many two-to-three-inch bell peppers. I was able to roast them and freeze for later to add to fajitas. I also just ate them raw because they were fairly sweet. I decided to share them because this is the first time I’ve successfully cultivated sweet peppers. I saved seeds from a beautiful fruit last August and am hoping they do well again this year.
Side Project Peppers, Because Why Not
About two weeks ago, I started Jimmy Nardello and Sweet Banana Peppers and King of the North Red Bell Peppers to experiment with a shorter indoor growing time on pepper varieties. They sprouted last week and should be ready to transplant to four-inch pots this weekend.
If you live in Colorado and want to try your hand at pepper cultivation this growing season, Sandia Seed Company shared several short season pepper varieties in a 2020 blog post. The Sweet Chocolate Bell Pepper and Shishito Pepper are solid options that should still yield fruit before the first October frost in Colorado if you sow them indoors within the next week.
No to Pepper Seed Starting...Yes to Seedling Pick Up?
Maybe you’re an avid pepper gardener with a slew of pepper seedlings growing by the minute under lights but are intrigued by the peppers varieties I’m trying this year, or maybe just maybe you don’t want to bother with starting seeds. If you’re in the Denver metro are, you’re in luck.
In an upcoming post, I’ll share details about how to purchase Furrow & Trowel seedlings in May. I’ve sold my seedling inventory for two years now and receive praise because of how much healthier the seedlings are compared to those found at larger garden centers. My seedling business venture is on the micro-micro scale, but I love finding small ways to get plants into the hands of my friends, neighbors, and new friends (that’s you, I hope). Stay tuned!
