Anita Martin wrote:
As an innocent European I thought the topic was only about pretty edibles and not ones you could sneak into your flowerbeds because where I live there is no need to sneak anything anywhere. Of course I get that you might want to mix something unexpected into your ornamentals ;-)
Apart from the edible flowers mentioned already I think most of my vegetables are beautiful - as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder I just have to think how good they will taste and they instantly become very attractive to me!
Logan Byrd wrote:Catie, have you looked into or tried growing pepper plants indoors? I know they can be grown indoors, and you can even get a great number of peppers off a plant that is pruned to a very small size, as the concept of Bonchi trees demonstrates.
I am still trying to figure out how to grow plants indoors organically, but I have friends who have grown large pepper plants with nothing more than a sunny window, a large pot, and some toxic ick.
Shea Loner wrote:What is the purpose of clipping the seed?
Mark Sanford wrote:
Anyhow, I continued reading about starting seeds indoors and was considering upping my game by purchasing a dedicated shelving unit, betters light and supplies etc. Then I stumbled across a site somewhere that recommended direct seeding and saving all of the time, hassle, and expense of indoor starts (of course this can all be a lot of fun too). The author indicated his direct sown seeds always caught up to nursery Bought transplants or indoor starts.
I’m in! So I did not invest in new [anything] for indoor seeding and am going to try all direct seeding for 2022 just to see how it goes. I’m a fairly new suburban permie. One of the things I find attractive about permaculture is that the systems promise require less work over time. Perhaps this will be a whole set of planning and chores I won’t need to worry about - we shall see. Compost tea is another thing I was getting excited about trying, but hit the pause button on this as well.
Ralph Sluder wrote:
Several years ago my grandson helped me plant my pepper seeds. He was small so they went everywhere.
After a couple of weeks I noticed average 50/50 germination but....
The seeds that landed in other planted seed trays all sprouted. ( on soil surface)
Now I just push the seeds of peppers down into the soil surface without covering and get really great germination rates.
Jay Angler wrote:Great experiment Catie!
FYI - As for the experiment of clipping the seed, I've never done that for peppers. However, there was a different tree seed I wanted to try germinating and it was recommended to cut the seed. My son does table top game miniatures and has a set of tiny files - skinnier by far than a fingernail file, and much finer - one of those worked like a charm. It was very easy to control how much of the seed coat I removed. I don't know if that would work better for your hands than what you were doing, but it might.
....
It would also be different if I was trying to grow a lot of something, but I really only need 2 pepper plants if they produce well. I ended up with 3 Thai Dragon plants last year that were super happy and I've got plenty of dry peppers in a jar to keep me happy for some time.