Life, Death, and the Bin...

I was sad I've had to bin some of the chilli seedlings because they've rotted.

I feel like a vegetable general vowing that 'no capsicum gets left behind, Joe' only to watch them get mowed down by my innexperience.

I guess it's playing the averages, really.

I decided that I would only plant two seeds per variety (Almapaprika would have been very crossed had I decided to go for all the seeds...we just don't have the space in the flat!), so I bought two little mini greenhouses, the ones that can hold up to 22 Jiffy pellets.

Jiffy pellets are cool! They look like little chocolate coins or oreos (just don't eat them, please) made of peat or coir, that when you dunk in warm water POOF! they swell to five times their size, and allow you to use to sow seeds.

They're like those instant grow dinosaurs you see at the continental market stands, or that 'grow your own girlfriend' a friend of mine once gave me as a prank (my brother, Peperoncino thought it was for real. Just add water...).

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. 22 per mini greenhouse. Two greenhouses. Two seeds per variety (sort of). In the first greenhouse I planted (January 14, 2009):

2 Ring of Fire
2 Cherry Chilli
2 Esplendor
2 Belpicen
2 Chocolate Sweet Pepper
2 Chi-Chien
2 Numex Suave Orange
2 Caribbean Red Habanero
6 of the Supermarket bought chillies from 2006

On the second one a week later:

2 Naga Morich
2 Red Savina
2 Chocolate Habanero
2 Fatalii
2 Orange Habanero
2 Birds Eye (piri-piri)
2 Rocoto Red (Rojo)
2 Scotch Bonet
2 Chiltepin (Tepin)
2 Jamaican Hot (Habanero)
2 more Esplendor

All done, right?

Not really. As some of the chillies began to germinate (or not), I moved them out of the greenhouse and into larger covered pots or into my ultimate grenhouse:

Glass Jars

With the space made, I added:

2 Stromboli
2 Etna
4 Black Cuban
4 White Habaneros

Sadly, the space made was done by the loss of the follwing:

2 Numex Suave Orange (just wilted. I guess it was too humid inside the greenhouse)
6 Supermarket Chillies from 2006 (guess it was old seeds)
1 Chi-Chien
1 Esplendor

And today it looks like I'm probably losing:

1 Jamaican Hot
1 Chocolate Habanero


That's the two greenhouses. I'm placing them next to and on top of the radiator to get some good heating to germinate the seeds (Almapaprika would prefer that heat go to more important things, like heating the room). The photo was from the third week in January. That same corner now has 10 little extra pots!

Will tell y'all later about how many have germinated and are so far going strong.