Planting Instructions

Planting Instructions

Chiles, Eggplants, Tomatillos and Tomatoes

• Do not ever plant your chile seeds using peat pellets, peat pots, or potting soil that is mostly peat. If you are using a seed starting mix with peat add 30% perlite. Do not add organic materials to enrich your seed starting mix as they contain fungi spores that can kill your seedlings. For tomato and eggplant you can use peat pellets, although I prefer to use the same material I used to start my chile seeds.
• Do not plant your seeds more than 1/4 inch deep.
• Always let the soil surface dry very slightly before re-watering.
• Make sure that your soil temperatures are between 75-80°F for tomatoes and 80-90°F during the daytime and room temperature at night.
• Always use a soil thermometer to measure the temperature. 
• Always use a weak organic liquid fertilizer on seedlings once they have their first set of true leaves.
• Do not use table salt, bleach or Epson salts to treat the seeds before planting. You can use a hydrogen peroxide rinse at planting time, especially important for chile capsicum pubescens seeds such as Manzano or Rocoto. 
• Tomato seeds germinate in 7-10 days. Chile and eggplant seeds take about 14-21 days. Some super hot chiles take almost a month to germinate, do not give up.