Best way to germinate pepper seeds | Gardening Tips

Thank You for Educating me.

please state if there is another way, because we do not have heating mats in my country. Nor loose dirt...

Soak seeds in a cool strong tea brew, works for a lot of seeds

Great information!

What temperature we need?

cut little bit of the Testa before planting

I have no problem with jalapeños. I ended up with way more than I needed and gave the plants away. My bell peppers were ok. My cayenne peppers give me great difficulty. I can’t seen to get more than about 5% to germinate.

Try toilet paper the cheap stuff then you can separate the seedlings easier. I just started doing this and it's working out much better for me.

I always soak my seeds, but I use cold black tea.

Do you have to keep the water warm for the time you’re soaking your seeds?

For my peppers, I always use heat mats, just like I do with all my other seeds. My tomatoes always do great.

I’ve replanted bell pepper seeds 3 times already, with no luck at all. These were brand new seeds also.

I ran out of heat mat—Ugh! I was using mat for late petunias and geraniums and needed to start pre germinating hot peppers. I snuck them along side, but it wasn’t the same because I had petunias in a propagating tray and all wasn’t fully contained by dome and tucked a towel around them. The flowers are great, but I couldn’t get enough heat to my 19 varieties of peppers. I had no other warm place and we must have an efficient hot water heater as that wasn’t warm either. So, some germinated as I could see a root popping. I also wanted to plant by the moon and it was the day to plant. I ordered more heat mats and am now getting all flats on heat, but I’m not seeing all peppers. I’m still hopeful to see them as they were all kept moist, just not all sprouted when I showed them.
I know it can take quite awhile for hot peppers so I will see. I also ran out of space and lights. That was the other difficulty was some that sprouted need to get light ASAP. This is one reason I don’t like connected propagation trays and why I did use separate 6 pks. So I can move the ones that sprouted off the heat and to more light. Because I was using a heating pad and hitting the button several times😅until new mats arrived it has stalled things a bit.
Now days some packets only have 15 seeds and it’s important to get good germination. And yes, don’t rip the roots off the seeds or wait to long to plant. Once the root peaks out I plant.

I plant my pepper in tray with cocopeat and put it inside a big plastic then close it with rubber. It's my first time planting pepper seeds its been 5days, hopefully it will work. I put my hand inside the plastic it's kinda warm.😂

1. Soak seeds overnight in solution of water one cup and normal vinegar 2 TBS. Then drain and put them in a ziplock and add half Tsp water.Seal and put on top of geyser. Better wrap it in aluminum foil for uniform heating. The seeds will sprout in 4 to 7 days depending upon variety. Take them out and put in small individual pots filled with potting mix and put in light or out door if weather is good. Do not use tissue paper, tender roots entangle in paper and break while taking out

Thank you!! Awesome video and straight to the point. Before finding your channel I watch the so called “pepper expert” showing how he plants his peppers and he didn’t mention anything about soaking. Just planted the seeds out of the packet. I did that last year and had ZERO germination. Even though my seeds were on a heating pad with humidity.🤨 He also asks people to BUY his book to learn the secrets. So annoying. I think soaking them is the trick! Thank you!!! ❤

Great video.. I love the seed soaking method and will be trying this method to help decrease losses. 👍

I tried the soaking in water method this year mine ended up in water for 3 days then planted as instructed not 1 seed germinatedtrying again with the paper towel method

Microwave 10 minutes.

When would it be a good time to transplant from the tray to a pot/ground?

Employing the last method, would the germinated plants grow any faster if I placed the seed tray with the plants on the heating mat?

I've seen another but similar method. Take 2 pieces of a toilet paper, cut a same size piece of plastic (from any plastic bag). Place a slightly wet toilet paper on the plastic, space the seeds on one edge and roll the whole thing as a cigarette. Put the "cigarette" in a plastic cup with a little bit of water (like 1cm or so) (seeds are in the upper part). Keep in a warm place. The paper will wick water to your seeds and you can observe your germination. Its a space saving way.

About 10% sprouting rate on my peppers all different types same everything else is like 90%, just the darn peppers

Can you soak tomatoe seeds as well?

Brilliant, thank you so much.

Thank you, this was very helpful!! I'm struggling with germinating peppers too !! 😅

I use 9 parts of water and one part of hydrogen peroxide to presoak pepper and tomato seeds. Everything else that you are already doing.

Try using 2-ply toilet tissue instead of paper towel. It’s still sturdy enough to work but it also breaks down easier!

I'll try soaking. Thanks!

Fantastic informaiton, and very timely. I'm just about to start my pepper seedlings. I was going to either use the papertowel method or the humidity dome method, but now i think i'll just soak and put them in seed trays. Thanks for the great video!

I had REALLY good results with Yellow peppers, ok with orange... no luck at all with red and the red/orange blend ones. Any thoughts?

Sure needed this information. Thanks

You just throw them in and give them water,

GREAT VIDEO , I LEARNED ALOT. DON'T TRY CUTTING CORNERS OR SAVING TIME. YOU WILL ONLY CHEAT YOURSELF & NOT DO AS WELL WITH PLANTS OR ANYTHING ELSE. BEST IDEA GROW A GARDEN YOU WOM'T HAVE TO DEPEND ON FOOD AT THE MARKET THAT MAY NOT BE THEIR. OR IS OUTRAGIOUSLY PRICED.

I struggle so much with peppers, everything else is fine.

i use a dome over the tray with the heat mat

We heat with woodstove, so it's a little cooler esp. overnight. I have pepper & eggplant seeds on coffee filters in both carryout containers w/covers, and recycled plastic bags. They are all on Vivosun heating mats...PLUS I put another mat above them. The mats are around 80-85 degrees as per the fancy digital winemaker's thermometer. The eggplants were up in 11 days. Some of the peppers are up too. Others (from 2/11 & 12) are well swollen but only a nub of a root so far....I check every day. It seems the plastic bags are easiest to check for roots (you can see thru them) but the carryout containers being black are also easy but dry out faster even with the free humidity dome. I think for space reasons, for me it will be recycled plastic zip bags (just make sure to wash out any food particularly cheeses). And always, always, presprout many more seeds than you alone think you'll need. Extras can go to your neighbors or sell them on CL.

I have a FIFTH (and possibly Ultimate) Solution.
I am a fan of soil-blockers and I've successfully sprouted many seeds in them (I have NOT tried peppers, yet).
I purchased a set which includes the Mini-4 blocker with square dibbles and the Micro-20 blocker. That container you used for the humidity dome looks like it would hold about 40 of the (3/4" cube) micro-20 blocks. If you fill two containers (80 block) and plant one seed per block, you'll have enough sprouts to fill a flat, with some left-over.
Soil blocks provide a medium to grow roots in, so you DON'T get transplant shock and fitting in the humidity chamber means you can keep them moist and warm long enough to germinate as many as you possibly can.
If you don't have soil-blockers, I can only say I highly recommend you get yourself a set. At least get the micro-20 for the small seeds like tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, etc. For me, the best set is the micro-20 and mini-4 with square dibble. I can germinate seeds in the tiny micro-20 blocks, then up-block to the 2" mini-4 blocks. (With some things, like lettuces, I'd just transplant the sprouts directly to my garden. Then again, I live in Southern California, zone 11,000,000.)

This is how I plan to start my peppers.
I'd really love to see you try this method and see what kind of success you have with it. IF you should happen to end up with a bunch of extra pepper plants... oh, woe is me, what a horrendous problem to have. LOL I wish I had that problem.
Um... DO you have soil blockers?

All the likes on this video happened at exactly 2 minutes and 50 seconds lmao

So there are two plants per cube. Do you prune one out? Do you also transplant to a larger container before final transplanting? Great info!

I have malted my own barley in the past and i would recommend soaking for 8 to 12 hours at a time with a short break and back to soaking

Do you have a video on transplanting them after they’ve grown some

I found out that soaking my seeds at least 24-36 hrs really does make a difference, they really do grow faster once soaked in water. Thank You.

This was great - thank you! But please revisit the use of peat. 🙏

I just found this video. I’ve germinated seeds before but never bell peppers. I had no idea they were so particular. I’ve got some in bags in between paper towels, they are starting to mildew so I think maybe I’ll keep them on the paper towel but move it to a container. I’d hate to lose them. Thank you for the video!!!

Amazing vídeo. Thanks!

Thank you very helpful, now I can start my seeds sowing

Hi. I did a series of videos looking at 3 or 4 ways of germinating and measuring the success here in zone 7b/8a. We've had a series of weather disasters here that impacted my level of success that year, but I have found one way of germinating that was pretty good.
This year I am trying yet another method - yours! Along with the really good method I learned last year.
I am new to peppers, and wish to become well versed in them. I specialize in hard to find, rare peppers and love to experiment with flavors (last year I fell in love with the Turkish kardoula, for example).
This year I'm doing Middle Eastern peppers, my usual Caribbean and some sweets I usually ignore.
Question: What is your favorite pepper and why?

Temperature 85 degrees F = 30 degrees C for those in metric countries