First time growing peppers (or anything) and I'm not sure what went wrong.
I kept the humidity dome on until the first picture. Which is also when i turned the light on. The light was originally much closer but got moved away over time. It was on for ~12-16 hours a day. Some seeds didn't germinate until after the light was on.
I tried to keep the soil somewhat moist but not too wet. Spritzing with water a few times every day.
I kept the heating pads on for the whole process.
Only one section ever grew their first set of real leaves. All of the others died off before.
I got some more seeds and want to try again this growing season. Any tips on what to do differently?
by 0lafe
3 Comments
As soon as they start popping up, get them off the heat mat and under lights. Keep soil damp for other seeds to germinate that are a day or two behind the rest.
This is called ‘damping off’ (this should help your venture into the depths of the internet). Next time, as soon as you see germination, stop the heat mat. And remove the humidity dome. Don’t wait until everything is growing, as this will increase the likelyhood of damping off once you normalize the environment.
As others have mentioned, you need to stop the heat may when the first seeds come out or they dry out within 24 h. But you’ve backed yourself into a corner because that would mean taking the whole tray off for a few seeds, so everything else won’t get the benefit of the heat. I use similar trays and did the same thing my first year…
What I did to solve the issue was cut the tray by variety, so I could take off the early varieties when they germinate and leave the others on the heat mat. I labeled the trays with masking tape and a pen. I also used a minimum of two rows per variety because only one row would tip over.
You still have time to reseed for this year. If you seed this weekend, you can plant end of April/beginning of May. Good luck!