Growing Chilli Peppers from Seed

This guide is designed for anyone who thought it might be fun to grow chilli peppers. Perhaps you've never grown them before, perhaps you've never grown any plant before. After some searching on the internet, you're completely overwhelmed with advice and information; uncertain where to start.

The website "thechileman" is not aimed at professional growers, but when we start talking in guides about vermiculite and heated propagators, you probably start wondering whether growing chilli peppers is even suitable for you.

Please, don't be discouraged, there is an easier way. Yes, we like to germinate our seeds, we use heated mats, we take advantage of the drainage properties of soil mix thanks to perlite. But you don't have to do all this. It can be incredibly easy to grow Chilli plants. That's why we have this guide for beginner growers or for those who don't want to be burdened with complicated matters...

Pepper Seeds

To grow your first Chilli peppers, you first need seeds (chilli pepper seeds). There are many amazing pepper varieties to choose from. But for complete beginners who want to be guaranteed they'll soon see Chilli pods, it's probably best to choose Capsicum Anuum, which generally grows faster. You can buy them at your local garden centre or in our section called pod enthusiasts, where you'll find recommended seed suppliers. Or if you want, it's so easy, simply pop into your local supermarket, buy a few peppers and extract the seeds from them.

Seed Germination

Germination is probably the most discussed stage in growing Chilli peppers, offering the most options. Now that you have your seeds, the trick is to transform them into plants. The first stage of this transformation is to let the chilli seeds germinate. The main requirements for germination are warmth, moisture and sufficient oxygen. You can germinate seeds in anything from a paper tissue to rockwool cubes, but the best growing medium is soil.

It doesn't really matter what you use to hold the soil. Whether it's a propagator or a simple plastic trough with small drainage holes you've created on its bottom to prevent water from waterlogging the soil. Sow the seeds on the soil surface and then cover them with more soil. But only so that the seeds are just below the soil surface, about 3 millimetres. Seeds only have enough energy in reserve to reach the light through germination, so if you plant them too deep, they won't have sufficient strength to reach the soil surface.

To get moisture to the seeds, you need to water the soil surface. Not too much - you want to keep the soil moist, not waterlogged. The final ingredient is warmth. At this stage, light is not required; ideally, place them in a built-in drying cupboard with warm air (or somewhere similar), for example above a radiator or anywhere warm. However, keep in mind that you don't want to bake them, and too much heat will also reduce soil moisture.

Was Germination Successful?

The seeds will now take several days to several weeks to break through the surface, depending on the variety you're growing. Your patience will be rewarded when they emerge.

Seedlings of these plants are very sensitive and delicate, so it's best not to touch them. Heat and moisture are still important, but the most crucial element now becomes the amount of light the seedlings receive. Therefore, place your plants on south-facing windows or in a warm greenhouse if you have the opportunity.

Transplanting Young Plants

Chilli plants generally produce leaves in pairs. The first pair are called seed leaves, the next pair are the first true leaves. As soon as your seedlings develop these leaves, you need to transplant the seedlings into a larger container so they have enough room to grow. Pots are readily available and inexpensive.

The size you use doesn't matter, but many people start with a plastic pot approximately 10 cm in diameter and gradually transplant as the roots begin to grow through the drainage holes. By keeping them in a small container, you can control the size of your Chilli plant. You might also be happy with a 15 cm pot so your plant can sit nicely on a kitchen windowsill, or so you can look at your empty beer mug in the background of your local pub.

Proper Nutrition

Another dark art around growing Chilli peppers is artificial fertilizer. Most are satisfied with an NPK mix, which contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. However, too much nitrogen can cause your plants to be full of leaves without fruit, and too little can cause your plants to yellow and wilt. But you don't have to worry about artificial fertilizer if you don't want to. The right balance of light and water is really all your plants actually need. As long as the soil is more or less adequate, the plants will be able to obtain all the nutrients they need from it.

Peppers Are Flowering and Starting to Fruit

Once your plants start to flower, your work begins. Fruits will develop from the flowers. You can find plenty of information about how best to pollinate Chilli plant flowers, but trust us, this will really work – simply when there are several flowers on your plant already open, shake your fingers around the central part of the flowers to collect pollen from them and repeat this several times on each flower. This will help get the pollen to the pistil and start the chemical reaction needed for fruits to form.

Ripe Chilli Peppers

If all goes well, the petals will gradually start to fall off as the central part of the flowers begins to slightly enlarge. This is the stage when chilli peppers start to grow. Depending on the variety you've decided to grow, the chilli pods will begin to form and end up with the shape specific to that variety. If you continue to care for your plant properly, it will continue producing fruits until autumn and possibly even after.

Please just be aware, this is really the A, B, C basics of growing Chilli peppers. This guide was created to show you and assure you how relatively easy it is to grow Chilli peppers, even with absolutely no previous experience.

Sowing Guide or How to Handle Seeds

Healthy seeds are dormant living things. To get the most from your seeds, it's useful to understand their needs a little. The Chileman guide focuses on all aspects that may relate to sowing Chilli, specifically the four most basic variables required for seeds to successfully end their dormant period: seed viability/moisture/temperature/growing medium used.

When Should You Start Sowing?

The answer to this question depends on whether you plan to grow your plants indoors or outdoors. If indoors, where you can use artificial lighting, you can start sowing them whenever you want. If you eventually plan to move your young plants outside, local climate conditions, especially temperature and natural light levels, dictate the appropriate starting time. In Chilli, people start sowing seeds at home 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost. In the UK, this is usually from early February to mid-March. Many varieties need at least 6 to 9 months to fully grow and produce fruits. So when you start in February, you'll have plenty of wonderful peppers from July to October.

Seed Viability

The health of your seedlings will be significantly influenced by the quality of the original seeds. Purchase seeds only from recognized suppliers, such as those listed in the Chileman database. Better suppliers treat seeds with preparations to eliminate the possibility of disease development. If you are using seeds from a previous growing season, proper collection and correct storage of seeds will also have a major impact on their viability.

Check out Chileman's guide on seed collection for further information. Stored seeds should be tested regularly to check their viability. We can only recommend checking seeds before sowing to increase the chance of growing healthy seedlings. You should discard any that are deformed, cracked, or discolored. Dark spots on seeds may be a sign of disease.

Germination Test

A germination test is a useful method for checking the viability of newly purchased or stored seeds. Before using this test, try to find out a bit more about the germination requirements and the time your selected variety needs to start growing, especially if it's a variant you have little experience with. Some species, particularly Chinense and wild-growing varieties, are notoriously known among chili growers for their low germination success rate and long germination times. Patience is required here, as some varieties, such as Habanero and Tepin, may not start germinating for up to 6 weeks.

To begin the germination test, spread several seeds on a piece of moist kitchen or tissue paper with a normal grid pattern (for easier counting). The more seeds you use, the more accurate the test will be. Cover the seeds with another sheet of paper, carefully fold it, and place it inside something that will retain moisture, such as a clean plastic self-sealing freezer bag. Keep them in this bag at a constant temperature somewhere warm, such as a built-in cabinet with warm air for drying laundry (or similar place), or on a heating mat.

After 5-10 days, count and set aside the sprouting seeds. Return the seeds to their warm location and calculate the germination rate (the percentage of seeds that germinated out of all those tested). If no more seeds start sprouting after several more weeks, you can be fairly certain that all viable seeds that were tested and should have germinated have already done so.

Keep in mind that a good germination rate doesn't mean you'll have many healthy, vigorous plants. While they may sprout immediately on a warm paper towel, it can be difficult for them to grow to maturity. Young seedlings with low vitality are more susceptible to mutation or disease. To ensure you grow at least one exemplary specimen of each variety, you should plant at least half a dozen seeds.

Note that as soon as seeds begin to germinate, they need plenty of light for further growth. If you deprive them of good light (whether artificial or natural), you'll end up with many long, leggy seedlings. Most seeds supplied by commercial seed suppliers should have a germination rate above 80%. For seeds where the germination ratio is less than 50%, the test should be repeated, and if the poor germination rate persists, report it to the seed supplier.

Improving Germination

Chilli growers and seed companies use various techniques to increase the germination rate. Among the most commonly used are physical scarification and chemical pre-soaking:

• With physical scarification, the aim is to either remove part of the seed or thin the outer seed coat, which helps germination. This can be done with either a sharp knife or a piece of abrasive sandpaper.

• Chemical scarification (pre-soaking) involves either softening the outer seed coat or mimicking the chemical process of a bird's digestive system, nature's way of encouraging seeds to germinate. This is an area where most myths and legends exist among Chilli growers, offering various seed soaking solutions, from using different chemical substances, through unusual hormones such as gibberellic acid (GA3), to more common solutions such as soaking in tap water, weak tea, or even pigeon droppings.

The chileman has found that simply soaking seeds in ordinary tap water overnight to soften the outer seed coat is just as effective for most varieties as any other currently fashionable chemical methods.

We can prevent potential disease problems by rinsing them in vinegar, which reduces the possibility of such issues. Chileman has also noticed great germination success, especially with wild-growing and Chinese species, when using the tea method or pigeon dropping method, although the seeds do smell quite a bit afterwards!

Tea Method

It is said that the success of this method lies in the tannins in tea, which soften the seed coat. Any tea will provide us with this service, but several growers have found that chamomile tea in particular is especially good. This is thanks to its antifungal properties, which help reduce the possibility of rotting.

1. Remove the tea bag and drink the tea.

2. Brew another cup of tea with the same tea bag and let it steep for a few more minutes. You have now created a weak tea solution.

3. Place the seeds between two pieces of kitchen paper towel, lay it on a small plate and pour enough tea over the paper so that it absorbs the water (drink the remaining tea).

4. Carefully fold the towel and place it overnight in a warm location.

5. After all this hard work, brew yourself another cup of tea as a reward.

Moisture

During the germination process, seeds absorb water and begin to expand until the small seedlings break through the seed coat and start to create their own nutrition through photosynthesis. Although moisture is essential for the germination process, the growth promoter should be humidity rather than wetness. An environment that is directly wet and swampy, waterlogged, promotes decay and mould, and seeds will likely rot rather than germinate.

Soil Temperature

Chilli plants, like their genetic relative the tomato, crop in the warm weather season. This means that not only a humid environment, but also sufficient warmth is needed for Chilli seeds to break their dormancy period.

However, even under optimal conditions, the germination process can be slow and irregular due to the fact that the degree of dormancy varies considerably between individual species.

Some species of tropical origin, particularly Chinense species and wild-growing varieties, tend to have long dormancy periods expressed by their slow germination times (often more than 6 weeks) and higher soil temperature requirements (75°F-90°F). On the other hand, seeds of annual species, which include bell peppers and many ornamental varieties, have a much weaker degree of dormancy and will germinate easily even at lower temperatures (50°F-75°F).

Growing Chili Peppers: Temperature, Growing Medium & Key Ingredients

Regardless of the variety, you should keep in mind the basic rule of maintaining a temperature between 75°F-90°F (24°C-32°C) with an optimum around 85°F. Light is not a decisive criterion during the germination process, but heat is absolutely essential. A seed propagator, a built-in warm air drying cabinet (or similar space), the top of a refrigerator, or inside an old electric blanket – all these are suitable places for creating good germination conditions.

Ingredients Matter

All chili growers have their secretly guarded soil mixture combination. Who can blame them with the enormous amount of combinations of this plant growth-supporting medium to choose from. Peat and clay, basic mixtures; perlite (a form of volcanic ash), vermiculite (heat-expanded mica), rockwool cubes and hydroponics – these are all commonly used options. So what's best? It's probably easier to list all 3,500 varieties that exist in the chileman database than to find an answer to this question!

Many experienced growers rely on hydroponics (growing plants based on chemical solutions rather than using soil) and it has many advantages. One disadvantage, however, is the cost. Traditional soil-based growing medium is much more accessible to beginning growers, so chileman decided to focus on this area.

Chili peppers prefer to grow in light, well-drained soil where the pH level is around 6 (slightly acidic). Just like adequate heat and moisture, sufficient air is also necessary, especially for the roots of young plants. Adding perlite or vermiculite to a sterile soil mix can also help prevent soil compaction and improve soil aeration.

When starting to sow, you should also avoid using a soil mix that is rich in added salts, bone meal or other artificial fertilizers, as they can burn delicate young roots. Chileman also believes in protecting the environment, and therefore recommends using peat-free compost whenever possible.

Whatever soil mix you use, peat compost with adequate moisture sprinkled with vermiculite, perlite or sharp sand will ensure that your seedlings have a good foundation for a successful life.

Best Soil Mix:

Mix five parts peat-free seed mixture with one part vermiculite and 1 part perlite. When starting to sow, use only fresh seed composts. Don't use soil from the garden or previously opened mix that spent half its life stored in the garage.

Both will likely contain weeds, beetles and fungal pathogens that can kill your little seedlings almost immediately after they germinate. After all, sterile soil mix is not expensive and is readily available at any garden center. If you really insist on using garden soil or old soil, make sure the soil is cleared of weeds and sterilize it to reduce the possibility of unwanted soil organisms.

You can sterilize soil by pouring boiling water over it or you can bake it at 180F in the oven for 45 minutes. However, given the smell and difficulties associated with it, why bother! Any seed trays should also be thoroughly cleaned with boiling water and a weak bleach solution before you use them, because obviously there's no point using sterilized soil if your tray/pot could be riddled with diseases. Chileman also favors using multi-cell seed trays, as this will make life easier during the transplanting process.

What to avoid when growing?

A common reason for failure is planting seeds too deep. Seeds have enough nutrients for themselves only for a limited time intended for growth, and small seeds planted too deep will soon exhaust all their strength and die before they reach the surface.

A tip for you may therefore be to place them on the soil surface and use a pot (with holes in the bottom) to gently sieve the soil mix over the seeds, covering the seeds with soil to a depth of about 2 to 3 millimeters.

Finally, whatever seeds you use, don't forget to label them. There's nothing worse than waiting months before you can even identify what species you're growing. Especially when there are 3,000 variants from which you can then deduce retrospectively. Keep in mind that you can use the Chileman database to help you. As soon as seedlings appear and grow, check the Chileman guide on how to grow seedlings and how to perform their subsequent transplanting.