Welcome! Please put at least your USDA cold hardiness zone if not your locale in your profile. It will be much easier for us to understand your growing situation. :)

Overkill? Ha, welcome to the world of overkill! Many of us grow peppers that exceed the 1000000 mark on the Scoville scale and then some. And then we eat them!

This forum is a great resource for everything from advice to seeds, so, welcome!!

This post was edited by pepperchuck on Tue, Dec 16, 14 at 1:59

Ya welcome to the forum. I just got on here last growing season, which is when I started my first attempt at gardening. I'm now hooked and come on here every day to read what everyone else is up to and most importantly learn.

Welcome, and container gardening is a good way to go, and my preference. What type of soil do you plan on using? What zone are you in and when do you plan on getting started? Perlite is your container friend.

Mark

I'm in hardiness zone 7a

I'm a beginner, but even then I doubt I'd try to grow a Bhut Jolokia here. I'm not sure on the super hots, but I think the ones I picked should be ok for a beginner. I'm obviously going to start the plants inside until the weather is more seasonable to growing outside. Even then, I'm going to keep them in containers.
I think most peppers need to be started inside before moving them outside. (or at least, the ones I want to grow.).

The length of the growing season for the Ghost Pepper is incredibly long.

From reading online, looks like the Carolina Reaper has a high failure rate for getting seeds to sprout. So I decided to add another super hot to the mix. It may be that the other growers weren't focused on the temperature. I'll be using a germination station with a heating pad to keep the temperature to around 80 to 85 degrees, then a heat lamp for the young plants until I move them outside.

Trying not to leave anything to chance. But if i can get a few plants to get to fruit, I"ll be happy. The germination station has 72 slots, so might as well use them all and hope for the best.

Good plan. Peppers do better started indoors in many locations along with other annuals. In my zone I could start them outdoors without any climate problems, but the pest problem is another story. So I also start indoors and plant out in April.

"And then we eat them!"

pepperchuck:

But do you post videos of eating them? The ones I've seen are hilarious, especially the more macho guys crying like babies.

Entertain us, please.

Hi Eagleclaww,

The first three peppers on your list are very hot. You might as well grow a Bhut Jolokia. A heat mat is good to use for germination. How far from the plants do you plan on keeping the heat lamp, you are more likely to fry the seedlings. I use a shop light T12 one cool white and one plant bulb and it does the trick, we keep our house about 70-75 in the winter. I added a pic so you can see that shop lights work great.

I usually start Jan/Feb timeframe

Mark

This post was edited by habjolokia on Wed, Dec 17, 14 at 8:20

@trebruchet I had my girlfriend video me the one and only time I ate a whole pod. It was a chocolate scorpion and it was brutal. Glad I experienced it but there will be no sequel... now that I think about it i don't think it ever made it to youtube :-/

Welcome, Eagleclaww!

> I know it seems overkill...

LOL! I'm currently growing 75 different kinds of peppers, and there are people here who grow even more! Like pepperchuck said, overkill is what we do here!

> Even then, I'm going to keep them in containers...
> The length of the growing season for the Ghost Pepper is incredibly long.

If you're growing them in containers, then when the weather starts getting cold at the end of the season, you can always bring your ghost indoors - at least long enough for your peppers to ripen! ;)

> I use a shop light T12 one cool white and one plant bulb and it does the trick

Good advice! I used "Daylight" 6500K 23W CFL's last time I started pepper seeds, and that also works well.

This post was edited by daveintexas on Fri, Dec 19, 14 at 15:11