The beer traps killed quite a few slugs, but it's clear many of the new hatch-lings found my sprouts before they found the traps. I guess that's the problem when they are hatching in the middle of the growbed.

All but three were taken off had their leaves chewed off, leaving just a stem.

I dont like slugs much at the moment.

So now I'm forced to go back to raising seeds in something a bit more like dirt.

This stuff comes in thin, hard, disks.

I think it's peat.

You put them into a tray, and pour some warm water on them.

They look like this when they are half expanded.

They must be poured into a bag, and then compressed, because the bag seems to unfold as the fibre expands.

The bag is thin like rice paper.

It might be rice paper.

I dropped two Sweet Remano pepper seeds into each one.

At first I thought I'd thin each pot out to one seedling by choosing the stronger ones, but now I think I'll just leave them if both grow.

I love this variety so much, that I'm going to grow as many as I can.

I should be able to crowd them in a bit as they have fairly sparse foliage, so ventilation and mould etc shouldn't be a problem.

The grow media looks like this when they are full expanded.

The device has a lid.

It was given to me by my sister in (common) law.

Even if this works well, I'm going to miss out on a lot of capsicums. One of the two plants I have that stayed alive from last summer already have full size* green fruit. That's the variety I dont like so much. The second of the two plants is my favourite sweet remano variety. It doesn't yet have fruit, but has the beginnings of a few flowers.




*for the miniature variety that it is


120 Things in 20 years - Thinks watching peat expand in rice paper bags is... Slightly interesting.