The winner of this year's germination race is... amarillo aji.
That's only five days since planting. The heating mat must be doing some good.
Today I started my hot pepper seeds indoors. This year I'm doing things slightly different. Instead of plastic trays, I'm using slightly larger peat pots. In addition, I bought a mat that plugs into the wall and warms the soil by 10-20 degrees. This should help with germination and produce stronger plants than last year. It's doing its job already; the clear plastic covering the seeds is constantly fogged up with condensation.
This year's selection includes several from last year: Flourescent Purple, Barker's Hot, Hungarian yellow wax, amarillo aji, serrano, and Charleston cayenne. I've also added some new ones: golden habanero, early jalapeno, tabasco and Switzerland aji.
In a few weeks I will likely plant some sweet bells, the tomatoes, broccoli and anything else that needs to be started indoors.