Friday night of the Sweet 16, and I don't care, because Illinois lost early on. So I'm entertaining myself tonight by planting jalapeño seeds. Here's how to get started! [SPOILER ALERT: Don't start seeds in last years' pellets!]
And in a MAJOR UPSET (not the good kind, like an underdog beating a top seed in a national sporting event) the jalapeños did ... nothing. Nada. No germination. (Yet ...)
Lesson learned: Always use fresh seed-starting pellets. As for the smaller pellets, they were new, so I am not really sure what happened. It is a bummer, because we need so many peppers this year, so I'll have to buy lots of starters. And I'm like a hoarder lady when it comes to pepper starter plants. They just kind of appear in my house, and then I have to plant them. Hmmmm. :)
This was truly me. Oh, the agony ...
And then, just like that, the One appeared 4/24/23:
And then more from 5/1/23 ... there are actually at least 10 smaller pellets that have sprouted!
Rescue 5/9/23: I kept these seedlings next to the back door where it gets a few hours of sunlight per day, but not like under the grow light. They dried out a bit when we went to Oklahoma for a long weekend, and I found the above seedlings seriously drooping over. Remedy: watering and a day under the growlight, and they are coming back! See below: GLORIOUS! Ahhhhhhhh :)
The Remedy: immediate watering and time under the grow light. SO big ...
Rescue complete: 5/13/23! The peppers are looking great, and we have more that sprouted!
5/18/23: Unbelievable!! In just the last 5 days, another pellet has sprouted. So for one complete row, we have achieved 100% sprouting. Ima proud pepper mama! The difference? I stopped watering the non-sprouting row long ago, but kept on watering the sprouting row when new sprouts popped. So, the moral of the story is: keep watering the pellets after your first planting. They will (might) sprout in 30 days. Thirty. And then the rest of them will sprout when they're damn good and ready. Sheesh!
