Chilli Up North Blog » heated propagator

More Germination and Seedling Pics

Andy — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:50:36 +0000

Seelings are coming on well now, my tom’s, courgettes and cucumbers will need potting on at the weekend as they are getting too big for the propagator. A few chillis have appeared but still waiting for most of them.

here is a of a few of them

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Chillis 2009 are go go go

Andy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:54:40 +0000

Finally got time to sow my chilli seeds today, a bit later than usual but as the saying goes…better late than never.

So far ive planted:

explosive ember
fisus blue
orange habenero
sweet pepper
fish chilli
violette cayenne
golden cayenne
satans kiss
dorset naga
peter pecker pepper
chilli fuego
mystery pepper
hot portugal
hidalgo

i also plated, the following non chilli seeds

courgette taxi f1 (yellow)
cucumber telepathy
cucumber crystal lemon
cucumber telegraph
Random melon seed
meteor peas
early peas
tomato eva purple
beams yellow pear tomato
chocolate cherry tomato
black tomato
hawiian currant tomato
white gem parsnip
gladiator parsnip

ive stuck a couple of pics of the process below, these are also in my germinating guide post.

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Heated Propagator

Andy — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:39:06 +0000

There are many ways of germinating your chilli seeds but i find that a cheap heated propagator tends to work best.

There are loads of different ones on the market ranging from £8 up to £100′s, they come in all different shapes and sizes and with lots of different functions. I tend to prefer the simpler ones as they are cheap and there is less to go wrong with them.

I currently have 2 different propagators, A home made one that consists of a standard window sill greenhouse that was £2 and a heat mat i had left over from keeping reptiles. I’ve been using it for a couple of years with lots of success.

The second is an 8 watt 38cm B+Q heated propagator that ive not used yet but its much the same as my home made one.

I find the easiest way to get the seeds going is to seperate the propagator up using a seed tray filled with compost then place 1 seed in each section, this makes it easier to prick out the seedlings and transfer them to their next pot as the roots don’t tend to get tangled. If you are careful when pricking out you can also use the seed trays again.

Below are a couple of pics, one of my home made prop without its lid on, and the other is of the B+Q one. As you can see the heatmat doesn’t quite fit on the window sill (oops)

Also to prevent the chillis going leggy and leaning too much , i rotate the propagator reqularly.

Home made heated propagator

Preparing for the chilli growing season

Andy — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:18:22 +0000

Well i took my first steps in preparing for the new season today by making a list of jobs i need to do between now and the end of the month followed by a trip to B+Q to get some bits and finally sorting out my seed list.

Whilst at B+Q I noticed they had loads of gardening stuff in the sale, including a heated propagator so i decided to treat my self, it now means i can germinate twice as many seeds….just don’t tell Emily as im not sure she will approve, especially when the seedlings appear in the conservatory.

Its nothing complicated just a nice simple one, ill post the details in a bit