Hot Peppers can be grown anywhere, but requires a warm tropical climate. Best is to keep the plants indoor or in a greenhouse. Plants can grow up to 60 cm in height and features unique chemical compound that keeps it away from pest

Hot Peppers can be grown throughout the year & its plant is grown by transplantation method. Seeds are first sown indoors in seedling trays or outdoors on seed beds. Later the seedlings are transplanted into containers or in raised beds.

Indoor growing containers can be Seedling trays/ seed cups/ small polybags/Seed beds filled with growing medium like Coco Peat.

Sowing Techniques: Take a seedling tray with medium sized cells having drainage holes at the bottom & fill the cells/cups with a moist coco-peat medium, hold the chilly seeds on your left palm and sow 2-3 seeds per cell/cup to avoid sowing them very deep. Place the seeds on the surface of the medium & push each seed a little inside the medium by using a pencil tip & cover it up with more coco-peat.

Keep the seed tray in a box or cover it with paper for the first 4-5 days to encourage faster seed germination by keeping the seedling tray indoors till the seeds germinate. Watering the seedling trays with a spoon in the first week by giving 2 tablespoons of water every day on each seed cells/cups in trays

If the seed beds are made outdoors, use well sieved fine soil as a sowing medium & make a raised bed from it. Cover the bed by making a temporary roof of the plastic sheet to protect them from heavy rain or direct sunlight. Watering can be used to give water in the form of a light shower on beds.

Seeds will germinate within the first 6-8 days & tiny sprouts will be visible, once seeds germinate keep the tray in an open partially sunny spot near the window & remove the covered paper.

The early two leaves will emerge from the second week of germination & these are false leaves called cotyledons. First leaves will emerge above cotyledons at the end of the second week & seedlings will start growing into a small plant, at this stage exposé the seedlings to more & more sunlight for leaf growth.

After the second week, keep only a single seedling per cell/cup by cutting off the weak, small & lagging seedlings with a pair of scissors it’s called thinning stage.

30 to 35 days after the seed sowing, your seedlings will be ready to transplant to big containers or raised beds.

Choose a container with a minimum depth of 8 inches & bigger spread area (according to available space & your requirement) like big trays or crates.

Ideal planting mixture for Hot Peppers is 2 parts of garden soil & 1 part of organic manure, or 1 part of garden soil, 1 part of coco peat & 1 part Vermicompost for indoors.

Transplant the seedling along with the root ball of a medium, without disturbing its roots in to a regular 8 inches container by placing a single seedling at the centre.

Hot Pepper seedlings can be transplanted deeper into the soil on raised beds with 60X60 cm spacing & little portion of the lower stem & leaves can be buried inside to encourage more root formation in backyard