[John]

They look pretty good to me (sorry)
I'd give them a chance.

[lentil987]

they look just like my peppers?? Think they are OK

[sally_cinnamon]

Hi Biscombe,
My peppers have ridges exactly the same as yours, I will try to post a picture to compare if you want...?

[Biscombe]

HI Sally, A pic would be great! I feel terrible that I threw some away. I rescued some out of the bin, they are growing in pots away from the bed with the others (which now look the same) :? The peppers in the bed are growing really quickly now some have flowers!! How often do you feed you peppers? and whats the best feed?

All the best

[sally_cinnamon]

Will post a pic at the weekend (have to wait to borrow my dads camera - can't believe he's more technologically advanced than me   :oops: ).  My sweet peppers are only about five inches tall so no feed yet, but my chilli has buds showing and since they came I've been feeding once a week with ordinary tomato feed, as I read this was the thing to do...

[mellowmick]

Can't get either red chillies or peppers to germinate. On my third attempt now. Surely, even in an unheated greenhouse, it should be warm enough now, even up here! Might it be a problem with old seeds? The peppers were mooched from another allotment holder and must have been at least a couple of years old. The chillies were just from a spice shop pack of dried red chillies, which has worked for me with coriander, fennel and fenugreek this year.

[Heather_S]

I dunno, they had a segment on gardeners world a few weeks ago and the pepper seeds in a propagater had a much better germination rate. Room temperature/windowsill temperature can be somewhat okay for them but really they need 23C+ heat to get kicked started. After that they're fine at 20C or a little below. I've never tried growing from spicerack chilis though and do you know how long they were in  someone's spice rack before they tried planting them?

[SweetPea]

I grew my chilli plants using the seeds from a fresh (supermarket brought) chilli.  They were germinated on a sunny windowsill (last month, when the weather was still half decent!) and are now about 3in high

It took two attempts to get peppers to germinate - the first lot never appeared but I did have some joy with the last batch.  I germinated these on the same windowsill and got eight good seedlings.  They were very slow to appear though.

[twysted1]

i have 3 chilli plants on the windowsill doing really well they have lots of flowers and loads more flowers coming on , but every time a flower dies back the whole flower and flower stem dies where it meets the trunk. yesterday i read on here i should be feeding them and i went and got some tomorite with seaweed. anyone have any ideas on what i could be doing wrong. i planted these beggining of march.

[GrannieAnnie]

I got a packet of chilli seeds on my February Grow Your Own mag, but only 9 germinated.  I didn't plant the whole packet though, but my own saved seeds which I have saved for the past 3 years from an F1 Apache, all germinated, and I've planted about 36 of them in my polytunnel and still have nearly as many again in 3in pots.  But am thinking I don't really need over 70 chilli plants.  Anyone coming to Lincolnshire in the near future???

Only 1 pepper from a packet 3 years old has germinated though, but can't plant anymore, as they were the last of the packet.

[twysted1]

my mum would probably love some, she lives in bourne.

[Heather_S]

twysted - How big of a pot do you have your chilies in? And if they're just on your windowsill, how are they getting pollinated?

Also I seem to remember that pepper plants "abort" some of their peppers for reasons unknown. All another matter of don't count your chicks before they hatch. I think they do just die back to the stem and fall off. That stem was for a pepper and now it's not needed, no use keeping it.

[twysted1]

they are in quite small pots at the moment  4 inch square pots which i realise is a bit small but i'm limited till i can get to my plot. as for pollination i am keeping the window open as much as possible.
i have just seen today that there is on pollinated flower. the petals have fallen off and i can see a tiny bud of a chilli forming so fingers crossed.

[Heather_S]

4inches is very small... I grow mine in "tomato" pots which I think are 8-9inches across and about that deep. That's all the space they really need to produce a decent crop. Then again I have my mini-greenhouse setup for them too. If you could get a soft natural hair paintbrush you could try hand-pollination.

[twhincup]

can any one also explain to me how and why i need to 'hand germinate' my chilli plants.

I have 2 x 6-8 inch chilli plants in terracotta pots in the back garden which seem to holding up okay despite the lapse in good weather. but they dont seem to be growing very fast. when will they start to 'fruit'