Did you pot directly into planting soil bags? That seems pretty a smart and efficient idea. How do you deal with drainage, just poke holes in the bottoms?
No, my steps are I germinate seeds in wet towels and a heated chamber, then take the sprouted seeds and plant those into little “Rapid Rooter” peat cubes, then once those begin showing their first true leaves, or roots begin coming out of the peat pods, I move them to little 16oz plastic cups with drainage holes drilled in the bottom filled with Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil. Once those grow out some, usually a few weeks, I can see if any need to be culled off from slow growth or weak genetics. Once I have the plants picked out, I then move those to the plastic 3 grow bags. These bags are made for this application, so they have 6 holes around the sides, and 4 holes on the bottom for drainage already there. They are a cheap middle step, like $0.20 each or something. Once these flower and start showing me what their fruiting traits are, then I will decide which to keep long term and then repot them in to 5 gallon cloth pots where they will stay until the end of their days.
Going directly in to the large bags would be difficult because it would take forever for the moisture to dry out in the soil to water again or feed them.
That’s an awesome run down. Thanks! In the past I’ve seeded into jiffy pods, moved to solo cups, then into their cloth grow bags. About to start for this season and always looking for new ideas.
What are you using to keep them warm?
The plants or the germination chamber?
The plants themselves. I’ve overwintered habaneros before in my basement and I feel like I could never keep them warm enough.
I could see where the temps would be a struggle in a basement. Since this is inside my house, they don’t get colder than what we have our thermostats set to at night and during the day the LED’s provide a nice bump over the rest of the house temp. I am in the “ideal range” for temps, but on the lower end. Lows of 70-73 and highs of 77-79.
