Growing Chillis: Matski's attempt number 3.
97 seeds planted last Friday. Same varieties as before, so a fair spread of heats and flavours.
One of the problems I had last time, was using a make-shift propagator for the whole batch. It was
okay ... some cheapy LED lights and a heat matt off Amazon, in a plastic tray with a piece of a large polythene bags as a cover. At the point I stopped keeping tally, I had 41 out of 80 seeds growing, but early on it became apparent that most were not benefiting from enough light - some plants were almost literally growing horizontally in the quest for more light, and many got very 'leggy' in the process, almost unable to support the weight of their leaves in some cases.
It was an okay set-up, but maintaining even heat and light for all the plants was clearly an issue.
Most of the plants died. I wasn't expecting much from them last year, because most were planted halfway through the season. But, after my friend passed away last year, I had about 2 weeks, where I didn't monitor them or water them properly, the weekend we went away for the funeral, a cheap fan heater in the room basically dried everything out - I think the thermostat was accurate to about +/- 20°C. A few survived, and although they've not been in great shape, and have been attacked by one of the cats, I'm hoping at least a couple will fruit come spring/summer. Couple of Aji Limons, a Cherry Bomb, a Bangalore Whippets tail...
Could probably do with topping them, but we'll see...
Anyway, now's the time to start again for this year... so as previously mentioned, 97 seeds are planted, and whilst waiting for the first of them to break through, I've made a slightly more substantial, better lit propagation chamber...
Behold, the Crapotron-12000....
It's an old Toy chest from 40 years ago... my Dad made it originally, and it's been in my possession all my life. Since it was other wise going to rot away in the garage, it's been repurposed...
Baggy the cat "helped..."
sometimes, if you stare into the darkness, the darkness stares into you..
It was basically bare inside... it now looks like this...
4 individually switchable 150W equivalent full spectrum grow lamps, and a heat matt integrated into the bottom.
Testing it out on a Hungarian Hot Wax plant that's otherwise been doing okay. My temperature display seems to have packed up, but if I reset it, it gives me the instant reading in the high/low, so this actually says 28.4°C. With all 4 bulbs on it's in the middle 20's. With the bulbs and matt on it goes over the 30, which is too hot. This is handy since I have a digital timer for the lights and for the heater, so I think I'll end up setting it for light 18 hours a day, and heat for 6. Humidity could do with being higher, but I've not really introduced much moisture yet, so that's to be expected. I'll transfer the seedlings into this as they begin to sprout. Out of 90-odd pots I can only fit 70 of the 60mm seedling pots in here, should be enough given the germination rate of Attempt 2.
We'll see how it goes. I'll be ****** off, if I see less germination than last time, but at least if they do start to sprout I've got a better space.
) but I have used metal halides. To run one 1k watt halide, which is about what I'd expect you'd need for your current crop, would cost approximately $200 per quarter here but that could be far more expensive than where you are... everything else is so I don't see why this would be different 
. I could buy a lot of chilli's for that!
And that first bottle of sauce will be great I'm sure.
