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Are my seedlings ready to repot?

scarlkatieeescarlkatieee Posts: 43
in Fruit & veg

These are my chilli seedlings, the variety at the back is definitely quite tall now.


and these are my peppers. Ignore those little seedlings at the bottom, it’s my basil and i know those are still too small to repot.
Do you think it’s time for me to put the peppers and chillis into slightly bigger pots?:)

Posts

  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    They look about ready to me, though they are not crowded. Give them as much light as you can, but not hot sunlight, to prevent them from getting leggy.
  • scarlkatieeescarlkatieee Posts: 43
    thank you for the advice @Posy :)
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    edited March 2021
    The usual advice is to pot them on when they have a pair of 'true' leaves, as this indicates they'll have some roots developing. So your first picture, they look good to go, the second one, it's a bit soon. You can see in the row nearest the camera, the true leaves are just starting to appear, still very small, but the next row still only have seedling leaves, so it's too soon for those, IMO.

    None of them are crowded though, as Posy said, so I'd wait a while, to be honest. The bigger they are, the less chance that you'll damage roots, stems or true leaves as you move them, so the better their chances of growing on strongly.

    Be patient  :)
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • clarke.bruntclarke.brunt Posts: 215
    Just as a suggestion, but the chillies seem an example of why I prefer to sow individually in small pots in the first place (for varieties where you know nearly all will germinate). From the even spacing, it looks as though they have all germinated, and most are growing well - maybe one 'duff' chilli in the second photo, but even that one might get going.

    Sown individually in 2-inch pots, it saves time and effort, and we don't need this decision of when to dig them up and disturb them just to put them in a pot. In pots, they can grow until getting too big for the pot, and roots are using all the soil, at which point they can be moved to larger pots keeping the soil together and not disturbing them at all.

    If a few don't germinate, then the soil can be included when potting something on later.

    With the basil, I'd probably go for several seeds in a small pot, so as to produce a clump of several plants (like the supermarkets sell pots of growing basil).
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