Germinating Tips


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There are many questions asked regarding germination. This is the most important stage of growing any plant, and it's beneficial to the plant (and ultimately you) to give it the best possible start.

Seed cells are ideal, as they come in 20 cells right up to around 200 cells. They are cheap and easily available from most garden centres and Builders Warehouse. Pick up some good germination soil also whilst you're there.

20 cell styrofoam growing pot inside sealed ziplock bag. The sealed bag keeps in the moisture and helps retain heat. Note the sosatie sticks used to give the seedlings growing space.
Fish boxes are ideal for growing up to 4x20 cell pots. You can pick them up by most fishmongers for around R15 - R20. They are an ideal size for placing a heatmat inside.
Another home-made seedling box with heat mat. This great idea was kindly sent in by Daniel Nel who bought a snake egg incubator kit and cut windows into it.
Daniel mounted his heat mat on the lid, but you can also mount it at the bottom if you so wish. The complete kit (without perspex for the windows) is available from Reptile City, and was R595 at last check.
We thought Daniel's idea with the windows was brilliant. So we copied it!. Our heat mat is the full size of the box, so we have it under the seed cells. The box was bought for R15 from a local fishmonger, and the perspex cost R190, but there is also a pane in the lid to allow more light. Originally the box was used to hold the 20 cell pots, but we found it more efficient to germinate over a 100 at a time, so a large seed cell was "trimmed" to fit the box.

Note how erratic the seeds can germinate, even at a constant 31 degrees. All these seeds were sown on 21st September and this image was taken on 3rd October. Far left are the Bhut Jolokia's, and so far only 1 has surfaced. Next are the Bih Jolokia's, and all 7 have popped up.

This is also the reason for using the persepx windows, as newly sown seeds do not need light, but once germinated they do need it.

Note the two probes? the one on the left is the thermostat probe, which is connected to an analogue thermostat. The right hand probe is a precision food probe with very good accuracy. We use this to set the temperature on the not-so-accurate analogue stat. We have two heat boxes running. This larger box uses the analogue thermostats, and a smaller box, with a smaller heat mat uses a digital thermostat (pictured below)
Digital Thermostat control. You can buy online from wantitall.co.za. Just perform a search on "Hydrofarm"
2011 White Habanero in its new 10cm pot. Note the much larger Thai Big Sun growing behind it. Sown in June (mid-winter)

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