View Single Post
Old January 14, 2012   #4
SEAMSFASTER
Tomatovillian™
 
SEAMSFASTER's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: American Fork, Utah
Posts: 160
Default

Last year I started planting hot peppers on Feb. 14th. It was WAY too early for the Capsicum annum varieties (Jalapeño, Serrano, Poblano, etc.). They became leggy, rootbound and just did not thrive. I think I would have been fine to wait until April 1st to start those, and they probably would have been more productive overall.

Mid to late February seems to be just about right for the C. chinese varieties (Scotch Bonnet, Bhut Jolokia, Habanero). My experience is that these are slower to germinate and slower to grow - more hard-core tropical than C. annum. January might be a little early for these.

I started planting bell and other sweet peppers (C. annum) on March 1st. That also was too early. April 1st would have been fine.

This is a generalization, obviously. If you plan to grow in larger pots (I used 3-1/2" pots), you could probably get away with an early start. I expended a LOT of unnecessary time and energy moving pepper seedlings in and out of the weather.

We did have an unusally cold and record wet Spring in 2011, however, which caused about a three week delay in planting for most growers in the area.

Perhaps counting back 7 weeks or so from when you plan to tranplant into the garden would be the way to go. It seems that every year I transplant my peppers way too early and they just sit there doing nothing for a month or more. I just might plan to transplant peppers on or after Memorial Day - that's a full month after our average last frost. That again yields an early April sowing date.

Early to mid April for starting tomatoes seems best around here. I can still get good, stocky seedlings by mid to late May. Again I've found that for most varieties, an extra early start just is not worth the time, energy and money.

Of course if you're just growing for a backyard garden, you can pamper the seedlings more, and the headstart might be worthwhile.
SEAMSFASTER is offline   Reply With Quote