Another take on chilli farming

Hi all, it’s been a while! I decided to try and get more active on Steem again, so here we go. After some planning a week or two ago, I finally started my chilli growing season of 2018 today. I have a couple of plants from this year still kicking, although all are somewhat suffering from lack of good care. After we moved to a house in the early summer (yes, I do have plenty of space now!), I have been focused on other business and the plants have basically been on nothing but water for the whole summer and autumn. I have been unable to locate my cans of fertilizer, although I am sure I brought them with us when we moved. I’ll need to find them or buy new ones very soon to avoid more issues.

Today, with eager help from my son, I sowed the seeds for chillies I’d like to grow next year. This is unusually early for me, since I tend to sow them in January or later. This time I should be able to set up a proper place and lighting to make the plants grow much better than in the previous years, since I have space to set the lamp without bothering anyone else (my wife). That also means I’ll have space to let them grow larger before needing to take them outside, or even to keep them inside for the whole season if the summer is too cool.

Here’s the germinating method I currently prefer. Credit for popularizing the method (at least in Finland) goes to Chilivaari, although I use a simplified method (without Styrofoam or similar padding under the paper). As you can see from the above picture, I have drawn lines on the paper towel and marked them (this time with both Roman numerals and letters). After this I added some plain water to the plastic container and set the paper towel on the bottom to soak up the water. I had to fold the paper towel to fit it better – a rectangular box would have been better, but I didn’t happen to have any reasonably sized ones around. The picture also works as a reference as to what is sown on each square, although I’ll keep a list as well. The order of the seed bags equals the placement of the seeds on the “raft”.

Here’s the result. All that’s left is to move the box carefully to a safe location that stays at a nice temperature (at or a bit above room temperature, possibly cooler during the night and warmer during the day) and covering the box with something. I used the lid from the container this time, but plastic film would work just as well. I haven’t bothered to punch holes through the lid, since I’ll be opening it at least once a day if not more to check on progress. If you copy this method, be careful not to add too much water – the extra will move the seeds around if you tilt the container too much. More can always be added later, and should be added, if the paper seems like it will start to dry. It’s quite a bummer to notice the paper’s dried taking beginnings of roots with it. This method makes it easy to see how many seeds germinate and it keeps them in a small space until they start to grow. Seedlings can be moved to pots relatively easily, as long as you’re careful not to damage the roots or leaves.

As an extra, here’s a picture of my seed bank – its’ a case for tools, screws, bits and such, but works pretty well for seeds. It could be a bit bigger, I guess, although I don’t really need to get many more seeds... seeing as I haven't (properly) grown even half of these so far.