Keep them warm and damp-not wet.
Seeds want to grow,let them do their thing.
Most people can't just leave them alone and baby them to death-fertilizer,overwatering etc.
Warmth is what really gets them to germinate faster.

I read that pouring hot water will help them germinate faster. Is this true?

I would recommend germination indoors where the temperatures are a bit steady and uniform. I recently tried germinating some seeds outside in my very small greenhouse about a month ago and I believe my lack of success was related to temperatures swinging back and forth between night and day. Cool at night and extremely hot in the greenhouse during the day.

My best luck has been in my laundry room. Keep them moist and they'll come up probably with 2 weeks unless you try the Superhots or the tepin/chiltepin varieties (and others).

Thanks for the suggestions. Wish me luck! Ken

Hi, my neighbor and I bought green BELL pepper seeds and in the package as it turns out were yellow hot pepper seeds because that is what we now have. These are said to be very healthy to eat. So we are cooking with these now and germinating more seeds. I plan to remove some veggies to make room for more of these yellow pepper plants in the garden. My neighbor grows them very successfully in containers, but she gave me a few and they are growing well in full hot sun. These seem to be the yellow Hungarian wax peppers, semi hot.
We cook them in olive oil with other vegetables and they taste wonderful.
Just one of several plant surprises we got this year...
I had tried to get several other kinds of hot peppers growing earlier this year, and none have grown. But these yellow ones are doing very well. Anybody else growing them in zone 10? What other hot peppers do well in Zone 10 if you know.. THANK YOU.

I'm in zone 10. Last year, I grew Jalapenos and cubanelles from plants I bought. I also grew Big Jim peppers from seed. I planted Jalapeno seeds last year mid summer and they never germinated.

However, a couple of weeks ago, I planted the same jalapeno seeds from last years batch in a sunny window just for the hell of it and have 3 very nice seedlings.

This year, I am growing Jalapenos, hungarian wax peppers, cayenne, aneheims and bell peppers.

So far, so good. Everything is blooming and I have some anaheims forming already. They are yellowing a bit and can use some fertilizer but I'm working on that (I'm a newbie at this).

I have everything in containers in full sun.

Ania

I germinate mine in a paper towel.
Place the seeds in a paper towel, fold it up and wet it, being sure the towel is more than damp, but not dripping.
Place the folded towel in a labeled ziplock bag, which you leave open and put someplace warm (preferably around 80) and out of direct sunlight. Check it to make sure it remains damp.
Start unfolding and checking the seeds at about 5 days. As soon as they germinate, gently place them in a seed starting mix.
Doing this, I usually get a very high germination rate and it seems to speed things up. In February here, it's easier to lay a bag next to a warm computer than to set up a heater next to a flat, trying to maintain temps that are consistently over 75.

Get a paper towel and a zip-lock bag.

Put seeds on wet paper towel and seal the baggie.

Put baggie on 80-85F (measure it) surface.

Wait

Paper towels are good. Also sphagnum moss in a Dixie cup under a light bulb, like an 80 watt sprouts really fast, the moss holds moisture and heat. There is less chance of mold than with thee paper towels.