Hot pepper plants are hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zones 9 through 11, but growing them from seed indoors saves garden area and allows you to better handle their growing conditions whatever area of the nation you reside in. Increasing your hot pepper plants from seeds instead of began plants also gives you more options when it comes to varietal and growth habits, all with no worries that include outdoor growing, such as pests and varying weather conditions. Under ideal conditions, it takes about 70 to 84 days to grow your hot pepper plants from start to finish.
Mix together 1 bushel of perlite, 1 bushel of vermiculite, 1/2 cup of fine-ground agricultural limestone and 1 bushel of sphagnum peat moss in a backyard bucket using a garden fork or garden trowel. Establish the expanding medium aside.
Insert a round fiberglass display in the base of each pot to reduce dirt from escaping and insects from penetrating.
Fill the pots three-fourths filled with the expanding medium. Insert a wood skewer or pencil in the developing medium in the middle of the grass, and make a hole for the seed four times as long as the seed is broad. Put a couple of seeds in the hole.
Backfill the hole with dirt, and water the expanding medium until saturated and draining from the grass. Put a electric germination mat in the sill of a south-facing window.
Place the seedling pot on the germination mat, and plug the mat in. When almost dry, remove the grass from the mat and then water the soil until saturated. Drain the bud’s tray and replace on the mat. Allow two to three weeks for the first sprouts to emerge.
Eliminate the weakest seedlings from the pots when the plants have two to three leaves. Cut them at the soil line with garden shears to avoid damaging the root system.
Eliminate the germination mat from under the seedlings after the plants consume two to three leaves. Fertilize the pepper plant by applying 1/2 inch of compost into the topsoil and mixing it into a thickness of 2 inches. Water the plant till moist. Fertilize the plant once every two months if it rises slowly and after a month when it grows aggressively.
Transplant the plant to a bigger pot if it becomes root-bound by tapping on the lip of the grass on a hard surface and gently working out the plant. If you see roots growing from the drainage holes in the base of the pot, your plant is root-bound. Place the plant in a 16-inch-wide-by-16-inch deep grass with a fiberglass screen in the bottom, and fill the empty area with growing medium and water until saturated.