When Is It Time to Restart Seeds?

I recently wrote that we began starting pepper seeds for our garden. We’re growing four types of peppers this year: Takii’s New Ace bell peppers, Gochugarju hot peppers, Jaluv an Attitude jalapenos, and West Indies habaneros. We started them on Sunday, March 22, and all varieties take 10-14 days to germinate. The jalapeno seeds were the first to germinate, doing so in nine days (March 31), while the habaneros and Gochugarju did so a few days later (April 3). All three were in the germination window. We’re now more than two weeks out since we started the seeds, and the bell peppers have yet to germinate. Additionally, not all of the cells for the other varieties have sprouted. So, that leads me to the question: When do you admit defeat and restart the seeds that haven’t germinated? I don’t have an answer to this question, but I do have some thoughts that I hope will lead me to a reasonable answer. Hopefully, it can give you some pointers too if you’re unsure of when to restart your seeds.

I never admit defeat or restart a seed that hasn’t germinated until at least a few days past the days-to-germination range. That range of days is a rough estimation for when you can expect the seeds to sprout. Even in the past few days, some of the cells have sprouted even though we’re beyond the range. Because of that, I try to be careful to never quit on the seeds too fast. At the same time, you want to be careful not to wait too long. The seeds and their subsequent starts need enough time to grow so that they can be transplanted into the garden with enough time to mature and produce fruit. And with a slow-growing vegetable like peppers, it’s a delicate balance.

Another aspect that needs to be considered is how many seeds you have left. In our case, we have leftovers for all of our seeds, but unfortunately, we have the fewest Takii’s New Ace seeds of the four varieties. So, I’ll need to be extra careful with restarting seeds so that we don’t run out with no starts to show for it. Of course, we can always order more seeds, either of the same variety or something different, but I’d prefer not to. It’s another reason I want to give the Takii’s New Ace as much time as possible to germinate.

Finally, the last consideration when deciding if it’s time to restart seeds is space. Do you have enough seed cells and room in your seed-starting trays to restart seeds? This may seem like a small aspect to consider, but restarting seeds does mean using additional seed cells, moving cells around within the trays, and making sure that the newly sown seeds can be on a heat mat while the germinated starts can also be under the grow light. Thankfully, we have plenty of space if we have to restart some seeds; however, that’s not the case for everyone and is something that should be taken into account.

So, what are we going to do? I think I’ve decided to wait it out with the Takii’s New Ace until this weekend. It’s currently a Wednesday, so that’ll give the seeds almost three weeks from the date of sowing to germinate. At that point, I think we can assume that the seeds have failed to germinate. If I do have to restart some seeds, I’m only going to use one seed per cell to not waste any more of them. And of course, I’ll keep you updated on how everything goes.