Grow New Pepper Plants with Store-Bought Peppers
In the process of making dinner the other day, I was dicing up some bell peppers. I carefully cut the core of the peppers out and was about to toss them in my compost bin, when I noticed all of the seeds clustered together, just asking to be planted. So I decided to seize this opportunity to try to grow new pepper plants with these store-bought peppers.
I’ve never actually tried this before with peppers but I have done this a few times with tomatoes so I’m going to take my experience with that and apply it here. So follow along with me and let’s give it a try!
Materials to Grow New Pepper Plants
You will only need a few supplies for this project and my guess is you already have them, or at least something that will work.
Bell Pepper (or your variety of choice)- One pepper ought to do the trick. There are usually a ton of seeds inside of a pepper, as you’ll see in a moment.
Gardening Soil- Once again, the soil of your choice should work just fine. I usually use an organic seed starting mix.
Container to start your seeds- Any container will do. I use recycled yogurt containers for most of my seed-starting projects.
It doesn’t need to be big because once your seedlings are ready to outgrow your container, they will be transplanted anyway.
Just make sure to punch a little hole in the bottom of your container so there is adequate drainage. If water can’t drain, your seedlings will damp-off and die.
Extract & Prepare Your Pepper Seeds
Let’s get to work and harvest the seeds from our peppers. This is really easy and should only take a few minutes. In fact, whenever you cut open a pepper, you probably get seeds all over your work space anyway.
Just cut around the stem at the top of the pepper and gently twist until the entire core comes free. When you pull it out, you’ll see most of the seeds still attached to the core.
Now gently brush the seeds off the core onto a paper towel. Spread the seeds out evenly in a single layer and leave them somewhere safe for a day or two to dry out.
The Quantity Method to Planting Seeds
Okay so this is where we have a choice to make. Do we take 40 containers and plant one or two seeds in each container? Or do we take one or two containers and plant 40 seeds in each?
Strength in Numbers
Based on my experiences with sprouting tomatoes, I am going to plant a bunch of seeds in each container and then as they grow, I’ll thin out the smaller, weaker looking seedlings. This is sort of the “only the strong survive method” and it usually works very well.
After all, you probably aren’t going to have any space in your house for a hundred containers, or space in your garden for a hundred pepper plants anyway. (If you do then I’m super jealous.)
So if we start with fifty or a hundred seeds in a few containers, and end up with half a dozen strong and healthy seedlings, I’d consider that a great success!
How to Plant Your Pepper Seeds
Planting your seeds is very simple.
First, if your containers don’t have drainage holes, you can use a drill bit to put about 1/4″ hole in the bottom of each container, right in the middle. This should provide adequate drainage.
Next, fill your containers about 3/4 full of gardening soil or seed starting mix. Gently wet the surface with non-chlorinated water.
Now add your seeds. Put a single layer of seeds on top of the soil so they are evenly spaced. They can be touching, but they shouldn’t overlap.
Finally, cover the seeds with another thin layer of soil, and water thoroughly. (Make sure you have a plate or a tray under your containers when you water them or you’ll make a mess.)
Seedling Maintenance
Now just let nature take its course. Keep your containers somewhere warm inside your house, ideally 70-78 deg. Rule of thumb is if you’re comfortable, you’re seedlings probably are too. If you’re lucky enough to have a dedicated grow room or shelving, awesome! If not, pretty much anywhere will do.
Optional: You can also use seed-starting heat mats to hasten germination if you have them. If not, it may just take a couple extra days to see results. Once the seeds germinate, you can remove the heat mats.
Make sure the soil stays moist but don’t over-water. Over- watering will lead to damping-off and your seedlings will die.
What to Use for Grow Lighting
Light isn’t required right away, but once your seedlings are an inch or so tall, place them under fluorescent or LED lighting. A normal LED bulb in a desk lamp should work fine.
Put the light about 6-8 inches over your containers. If the light is too far away, your seedlings will have to “reach” for the light and will grow tall and leggy. The same goes for light from a windowsill. It may not be intense enough for little seedlings. But use what you have and don’t be afraid to experiment!
I use LED shop lights for my grow setup. For a more in-depth look at my indoor grow set-up, check out my article below!
Thinning Your Seedlings
After about two weeks, my pepper seedlings have popped up nicely and now need to be thinned. This may seem like blasphemy to kill innocent seedlings but it is unfortunately necessary. Think of it as the survival of the fittest. This will reduce competition for light, water, and nutrients and will allow the best seedlings to grow strong.
At this stage, I’m going to pluck out all of the smaller seedlings and will leave about 6-10 seedlings in each pot. Just comb through each container and gently pluck out the smaller seedlings, making sure to get the roots.
Now with the containers thinned out, they’ll go back under my grow lights for another week or two.
Once they grow bigger and again start to compete with each other, I’ll repeat the thinning process so there are only 2-3 per pot.
Conclusion
Sprouting seedlings is always an exciting experience, especially when you harvest your own seeds from vegetables like this. This is a fun and relatively easy project that can save you from having to buy pepper plants from a nursery. So give it a try and grow new pepper plants with those peppers in your fridge!
If you have any questions or comments about growing peppers from seed, please reach out below and I’ll be happy to get back to you!
Take care,
Cody
Thistle Downs Farm