HelpfulGardener.com

Hello all!

I started my seedlings 7 days ago and My chives, scallions, and lemon mint have all poked their little heads above the surface. My jalepenos and california wonder peppers have not and I'm a little scared. Do you think they need more time or do I need to find a heat mat?

If I do have to start over, should I plant new pepper seeds or can I just apply heat to the ones I already planted.

I'm having a similar problem this year. Though yours is not necessarily a problem at this point. Peppers often take two weeks or longer to germinate, especially if the soil temperature is under 70 degrees or so.

Chives, scallions, mint are all cool weather things that don't need warm soil.

Peppers do need warm soil and are very slowed down by cool soil:


e.g. at soil temp of 59 deg. F tomatoes take 14 days to germinate and peppers take 25 days, at 77 deg F tomatoes take 6 days and peppers take 8.
https://tomclothier.hort.net/page11.html

So you can wait a while longer. The trouble is germination rate goes down a lot too, because the seeds can rot out while they are sitting there in cool damp soil waiting to sprout.

If you start over with a heat mat, I would start with fresh seeds.

As requested already a heat mat will help tremendously. Also note hot peppers normally take longer than swee bells.