Gave away my last jar of super hot salsa that I canned in the fall of 2018 so I am going to try and get a few pepper plants started for spring
You’re not messing around, those are some wicked hot peppers! I have grown BBG 7 pot, the hottest pepper I’ve ever tried. How’s Butch T compare?
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Any suggestions to get these suckers growing faster? First year growing from seed. I’m surprised how slow the hot peppers are. I’m about about 5-6 weeks into growing them and they’re barely a few inches tall.
We’re growing the following this year. .:
Apocalypse Scorpion
Carolina Reaper
Chocolate Seven Pot
Aji Habanero
Aji Crystal
Aji Mango
Aji Lemon Drop
Aji Fantasy White
Dulce Sol
The sweet peppers(Habanada, Shishito, Jimmy Nardello) seems to be growing quite a bit faster.
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I really like butch t, it is hot and does not taste like a habanero. I only started one 7 pot bubble gum in 2018 and I gave it to my brother so I never got to try it. I’m looking forward to trying the Dorset Naga
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Mine usually get leggy and really don’t take off good until I set them out
try a large heat mat. hot peppers like heat.
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Superhots and some others like Rocotos are just slower to get going. Some people start them as early as November to get them a good size to plant out. Here are some 7 Pot Primo (left cell pack) and Orange Rocoto/Manzano (right cell pack) growing with some younger micro tomatoes behind them. They’re about 5 weeks from when they were sown.
I have a few jalapeno seedlings I started a week after these for a grafting project and they are close to twice the height already.
If you aren’t fertilizing regularly at this point, definitely get that going. I use master blend at 1/2 strength once a week. I started fertilizing about a week ago, which was later than I should have, and I definitely see them moving along faster now.
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i started mine earlier last time but they got a little leggy before spring so i backed off a month this year. hope i don’t regret it.
Next time your peppers (or almost any veg. plant for that matter) get leggy, just re-pot them, burying the stem. Make sure you have them as close the lights as possible. Makes for strong thick stemmed plants. 
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I’m sure you’ll be fine. I started the scarlet lanterns and chocolate ghosts I grew last year on Feb.1 and they did well, but I’m hoping to get some of these producing earlier this year so I get more total production. Plus I’m trying the Rocoto peppers for the first time and they like cooler temps so I’m hoping to give them more time before the real heat arrives. I still have several other C. chinense types to plant and hope to get to that this weekend.
The people I see staring plants in November move them to gallon pots and have grow tents, etc., which is more effort than I’m ready to put into it.
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I grew rocoto de sada ( I think that’s how you spell it) the summer of 2018. It grew well but was unlike other peppers in most ways. The plant grew out wide but not very tall and it made little purple flowers. It dropped the flowers most of the summer before finally setting fruit at the very end of summer, the rocoto is the yellow pepper below
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I’m hoping with an early start I might get a rocoto pepper or two before the heat, but we’ll see. I’m also going to grow one in a 7 gallon fabric pot that I can move into partial shade for the summer to see if that helps. How was the taste? Worth the effort?
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That photo was taken on October 15th. Maybe it was the summer heat that made the flowers drop but I asked @thepodpiper and I believe he told me that the plants are slow to produce and it may be necessary to over winter one to get it to really produce. It was hot , I remember that , not as hot as the super hots. I don’t recall the particulars of the flavor, it just made a couple of peppers as I recall. The black seeds are the most striking feature IMO.
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Along this subject, last year I had three hot peppers (Bhut Jolokia, BBG 7-pot and Chocolate Hab) that I had in cups that were supposed to get planted, but never did. So, I decided to keep them going through the winter. I was surprised to see one of them had a little bud on it. The plants have lost quite a few leaves, but are hanging in there. I need to put them in their own little pot and give them a little fertilizer to see how they do. Would be cool to be able to see if I could get them through the winter and the plant out in the spring.
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I know I started my super hots and other chinense peppers early last year and decided to start them even earlier this year because they’re slower than everything else. But I can’t remember if I started my Buccatums (Aji colorado, Aji mango and peppadew). Anyone have any thoughts on how they grow and when to start compared to annums? I think I started them about the same time and they were about the same time at planting, but wonder if I maybe gave them a week headstart. @thepodpiper or anyone else have a suggestion.
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i need to start mine pretty soon.
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I start all my peppers indoors with heat this time of year ( It’s my St Valentine’s gift 
)
Peppadews (I keep my own seed) have always been the most reliable and quickest to germinate. I aim to be planting out the first week of May when our danger of frost is over. I find the peppadews are the slowest to ripen - even slower than the super hots, so try to get them really well established in pots before May.
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I gave my peppers their first dose of fert today. They are just starting to show the first true leaf.
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I plan to try two new (to me) varieties that I got from Baker Creek:
I also have some other seeds from years past that I plan to pull out. I hope to get them started tomorrow.
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