Oh and for seeds, does anyone have experience with fatalii.net? Or some seeds for sale, perhaps?

Wayland Chile's for seeds. Search amazon and then Wayland for all your seeds. His willingness to help people is amazing. Also I'm growing the Carolina reaper. I have 4. Started in August for the 2016 grow season. What kind of plant do you want? Tall? Short and bushy? Your potting mix sounds OK except for the outdoor grow. My recommendation is this. First its my 1st year. 2nd I have all winter for plants I started in April. OK my seedling tips are get them started in potting mix. With heat mat. In a small container. Basically sumthing maybe 1 inch wide and 2 inches deep. Trans plant every time roots hit sides and bottom. Once in a cocktail size solo cup make a potting mix of 75% potting mix and 25% composted manure. Not fertiling needed. As plant reaches same size of pot transplant.. I top my peppers and all that. If ya want more info let me know. I'm a pro at keeping plants dwarfed and also helping them grow fast. BTW hot peppers always seem to stunt for the first several months. Watch out tho they will hit there stride.

BTW ph should be near 7 for seedlings and also Epsom salt is your friend. Pests are easy. 1tbs dishsoap and 1-2 tbs per 2 gallons in a sprayer works great. Spray in the evening or mornjng

Ok,ph 7, I thought I read 6. I plan on letting them get 3 or 4 for tall.

thanks for the input. Nice looking plants btw what's the Epson salt for? I know this,I just can't remember

Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate. It's good for the plants and allows the uptake of the basic npk. BTW ghosts can grow 7ft tall. As with temps and lights just a 2ft t5 may not be enuf. I run 4 4ft daylight t8s and also have 2 100w CFL's 3 150w CFL's and 1 400w CFL. I do not recommend peat moss in anyway. Better finding a good potting mix with less than 25% peat. I plan on starting about 2-3 thousand plants in my 8-14 grow room. Also right now I'm overwintering sever plants that I started in April. BTW the sand on top of the pots is for fungus gnats control. Half to 1 inch layer. Also water from the bottom. Let dry out completely before you water again. If you grow in 5 gal containers nxt year check out air pruning. Just make sure you have a dripper system as they will dry out 2 times a day. I water all my pots once a day. My soil is clay ibelow raised bed and amended garden so I only have to water those once a week at the most. If you start your seeds now then you can top them and increase yields like no other. Peppers you see in pics were topped. And they will produce 50-100% more peppers with less plant.

BTW what the ghost pepper? Need seeds? Wayland Chile's or jungseed company which is local for me has them. Puckerbutt pepper company also has them. Also has all peppers hotter than a ghost like all the scorpions, the Carolina reaper, the black bhutla

I've heard bad things about puckerbutt. I'm not exactly sure why the ghost pepper. Habanero don't do it for me anymore, so I figured that's the next logical step up, also the ghost has been around a lot longer than any of the nuclear varieties, so I figure more should be known about it.

why no peat? The above mentioned mix has worked quite well for other plants grown indoors, not that I am against change, or anything.

and the light I have should be enough. I'm sure not getting more, so it better be. It's a 96 watt fixture, rated at 4000 lumen worth 4 bulbs, and a footprint of 2 square foot. If I can keep the plants under it, giving them .4 square foot each- pretty big seedling, they s should be fine.

That's more my speed. I already have the t5 though so that's not an issue.

what kinda potting mix are we talking about? And what kinda ferts

Something I learned too, I'm case you didn't know, is that lumen measurements are rated from 12" away from the bulbs, which means putting it 3" away means it's closer to 15000 lumens

I used what I had on hand, MG regular potting mix and MG tomato formula ferts. But many others will work fine.

I really am over thinking this,I would never think miracle grow

That current about the lumens want meant to be rude. Out may have come across that way, but it wasn't

OK all settle down here. Also peat is bad. Ask any pepper grower. 2nd puckerbutt is a good company for the most part I chose Wayland Chile's. A reseller of seeds. Smaller man means more to me than a huge company. Also hell do special orders. Why buy 30 seeds if you only want 4? Next on light great 30 dollar setup but you can get 2 shop lights and t8s 6500k at Walmart for same price and not have to build your setep. Just saying;). Next as for certain did you know mg has actual salts in them? Not good for any plants. Just saying here. They might work fine and that's OK. But what's cheaper? Composted cowshit and Epsom salt. Which isn't actually salt. Need more nitrogen BTW your own pee works great. Sorry for the gross ness

Sure it does. It's what I had on hand and it worked for the short time I had them inside. And as I said, others work well. Harley Rose asked what I used. I answered the question. In my garden I use organic stuff. Did you know that all synthetic fertilizer is salt based? It's not just miracle grow. How about Epsom salts? It's a salt! A salt is an ionic crystalline compound. So any substance, usually metals, that have given up their ion to bind with another substance and forms a crystalline compound becomes a "salt." Magnesium sulfate is a SALT. So you put salt in your own garden. (I do too because the plants love it) Some salts are good. So which salt are you referring to?

I start all my peppers, ghosts included, in MG starter, then repot in regular MG, then move outside. No problems.

Tomato Growers Supply has good prices and excellent germination rates for me.

So Harley, you getting confused or suffering from information overload yet? I sure am after reading this thread. If you've ever started any other type of pepper from seed before then you already know how to start ghost peppers. It just might take them a bit longer to get to transplant size.

As you've already noticed, everybody starts their plants using what they've got available to them and you're unlikely to find any two people starting their seeds the exact same way. Although there is some general common ground. Hence why you've found mostly just general growing info up to this point.

For the peat issue, it isn't an issue. Not sure where the idea came from that peat is bad for starting peppers but if that was the case the people who start transplants for selling wouldn't be using peat based potting mixes.

As for epsom salts, if your fertilizer doesn't provide magnesium or if the soil your growing in is deficient in magnesium then epsom salts might be needed. Otherwise adding them won't be doing much of anything.

Rodney

I go the super cheap route when sprouting pepper seeds, wet a paper towel place in a Tupperware container put seeds on the paper towel fold over and place the Tupperware lid on and place it on my DVR. Soil mix I prefer is MG organic choice and mix it with MG orchid mix (non-corse blend) and additional perlite. This is what has worked for me over the years. I've used Comcast, Verizon, and directTV DVR's they all put out about the same amount of heat. But a heat may is good if you already have one. Everyone has different ways and soil mixes they use. It's about figuring out what works best for you.

Peat isn't good because its not renewable. Also has a very low ph. Peat contains no nutrients. They use chemicals to balance out peat. If you let a peat based product and the your peppers dry out like you should then your soil becomes hard. Next time you water chances are youre water will run right through the pot.

Yeah,a little over whelmed. I'm always scared to do the paper towel thing for sprouting,I feel like I'm gonna mess the sprout up when transfer it.

yeah a little overwhelmed. Why can't it be like weed, with a million step by step tutorials. Every topic I search comes up with hits from pot websites.

I don't know why I said peat,I meant coco coir. But I know the ph will be of, and no nutrients,I don't care, that gives me control over the nutrients.

lol, about the comparison of dvrs. Yeah I already have the heating mat

I would think miracle grow would be much more expensive than perlite and a brick of coir or peat? Less work for sure.

For starting coir is the most user friendly as far as my experiences have been it is. It is cheaper in brick form. As for the post start use potting mix, or mix your own. I steam all of mine before use indoors, or with seedlings as to make sure there are no bugs hiding in it. I have had fungus gnat problems from bagged mix, and peat moss.

"I will use an aquarium pump on a timer to stimulate air exchange in the "greenhouse"."

Do you mean a water pump to "pump" air? The lack of water resistance on the blades might burn out the motor, better go with an actual fan. It's easy to find free or inexpensive computer power supply fans and hook them up to equally cheap wall warts. :)

SoCarRob, please, describe the reflector in your $40 light setup because I do not recognize it as anything I've seen before.

No,I meant an air stone. Sorry,I guess I was vague

jsides1979- Selling isn't allowed on GardenWeb forums.

"Peat isn't good because its not renewable."

How so? Canadian peat producers are regulated.

Certification and industry policies

"Also has a very low ph. Peat
contains no nutrients. They use chemicals to balance out peat."

Its ph is around 4 and it having no nutrients is easily corrected. And the "chemical" they use to adjust the ph of peat is lime, a naturally occurring mineral. If you make your own potting mix you can use dolomite lime which contains both calcium and magnesium meaning you won't have you use epsom salts.

"If you
let a peat based product and the your peppers dry out like you should
then your soil becomes hard. Next time you water chances are youre water
will run right through the pot."

Peppers would be showing signs of stress before the potting mix dries out to that extent.

Rodney

The reflector is a 5 foot length of heating ducting from my local home improvement store.

I am so unsophisticated in growing these. I fill styrofoam cups with compost and topsoil, drop seeds, wet it down, and place in sunny window. I don't seem to have any issues with germination or harvest. This year I am attempting to put a grow room in my basement to get a head start on several spring plants that I always seem to battle.

Once my plants have 6 leaves, I use a pretty diluted amount of fish emulsion once every ten days or so. When I transplant, I work a fist full of Dr. Earth's 5-7-3 fertilizer into the container or the dugout hole. My habs and scorpions seem to do very well and get big with strong fruit production.