It’s great to grow your own fruit, vegetables, chillies and herbs, but for many the struggle is with germination - getting all those wholesome crops to shoot in the first place!

Luckily the answer is a simple one.

For the majority of seed varieties, you will require 2 main ingredients, which are warmth and moisture. Let’s take chilli seeds for example: The main reason for unsuccessful or poor germination rates of chilli seeds is down to the warmth factor. You see, although you may sow your chilli seeds in good soil, and keep that soil moist (but not soggy), the seed trays may be left on a windowsill or in the kitchen, where the temperature is warm during the day, but cool at night time.

Chilli seeds need a fairly warm and consistent temperature range in order to germinate properly (between 27-32 degrees C) and the low night time temperatures caused by the heating going off means that the average temperature is low, sending mixed signals to your germinating chilli seeds!

The answer is therefore to use a heated propagator for propagating your seeds for best results, ideally with a thermostat to allow you to control the temperature more accurately. If you don’t have a heated propagator, then the next best thing is to use your airing cupboard where the average temperature is much higher, and once seedlings start to emerge, then you can transfer your seedlings to a sunny window sill so that they get lots of light, which is important to grow healthy and strong plants.

If you can get a heated propagator with a lid that is ideal, as many seed varieties also like a bit of humidity to germinate successfully. This means you can also water your seed trays less often as more moisture is retained.

So, now all you have to do is to follow these simple tips to start getting better results germinating your chilli seeds and solve any poor germination problems you may be getting.

Propagation Kit

And if you really want to get off to a flying start, then you may also be interested to know that the air/moisture ratio of your soil is also important when propagating seeds. This may sound like a complicated thing to achieve, but you can have all of this made easier for you with a Root Riot Propagation Kit.

The kit, which consists of a propagating seed tray and special cubes made from bark and other organic materials, is all you need to start germinating your seeds with much better results. The spongy Root Riot cubes also help to maintain theoptimum moisture/air ration that outperforms other growing media. The kit also comes with a bottle of Clonex (R) cloning solution for cuttings and some concentrated nutrients for plants too!

If you want better germination results, then a propagation kit is the way to go. Add some warmth and you’ll soon have the confidence to grow your own chillies, herbs or any plants from seed quickly and easily, eliminating the guess work.

All you need to do now is keep your germinating seeds warm and you’ll soon be seeing those shoots starting to emerge.