Alioth's Journal: Step into the burning ring of fire

Yay! My jalapeno seeds (saved from last year's jalapeno plants) seem to be germinating pretty well. Tiny little shoots are emerging from the seeds that aren't completely buried (I can't see the rest so I don't know what they are doing yet).

This year I'm going to grow them under polytunnel. While they fruited last year (and the chilis were fiercely hot), the yield wasn't very high and most of the peppers were rather small, so I'm going to see what a bit of plastic will do for them - and maybe there can be a repeat of that Johnny Cash moment again this year.

The Joys of Peppers;-)

[Shadow Wrought]

I've been growing hot peppers for 4 years now and they are quite fun to grow. One thing that will help them flourish is the temperature of the soil and the air. If you can put down plastic to heat the soil before planting that will help quite a bit. If you can also keep the young plants insulated, it will help them to grow and fruit faster. Cutting the bottom off of a plastic gallon jug is a cheap and easy way of doing this. One last thing that a friend di was to fill jugs with water and half-bury them

Re:

[Alioth]

Essentially what I'm trying to do - last year, I grew them outside and I don't think there was enough heat, but the tub I've germinated them in has a bubble wrap 'greenhouse' over the top. The soil and the air in there gets very warm in the sunshine. I'll be constructing some kind of frame to make a short polytunnel to keep the plants under once they get going.

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

I hope they turn out for you. I've been planting the peppers the first week of June here, and I usually have all the plants out of the ground by the first of November. If we have enough warm weather early on, I can sometimes even get two batches of hot sauce;-)

Jalapenos...

[TinaMarie]

I have 6 entire jalapeño plants this year. I'm thinking of making jalapeño jelly.