First of all we would like to appreciate the very warm welcome we have received during the past two days on steemit. That´s been defininitely a fabulous experience so far. Thank you!
Today we would like to start a short series called "Insight Into The Hot Pepper Business", explaining our day-to-day routine and which are our key drivers to success.
Picture: 7pot Infinity
Insight #1 - Pretreatment of Seeds
Gardening has become a quite popular activity during the past years all over the world.
It´s probably due to a more stressful life we are facing nowadays that more and more people enjoy spending their freetime in nature. That´s obviously an excellent evolution in the context of our business, but even more appreciable in view of health, wellbeing and balance.
One of the wonderful characteristics of cultivation is the fact that the journey is the reward.
It´s starts from the very first moment.
Since we pursue a high quality standard we aim for professionality right form the start. If the primary material wasn´t perfectly prepared, the end-product couldn´t ever reach excellence.
That´s similar to the way cooks do usually work. If they didn´t use excellent ingredients, they wouldn´t ever be able to create a superior dish.
We are huge fans of the Spanish star chef David Muñoz who is well known for this quote: "Solo vale la puta perfección." (Only the fucking perfection counts.)
That´s a philosophy we believe in since 15 years.
Before even thinking about the sowing process, the seeds should be pretreated.
You can skip the whole process, but then you probably won´t achieve a germination rate of 100% (meaning that not all of your seeds may decide to become a future plant).
The pretreatment will help the seedlings to break through their shells.
We recommend to soak the seeds in "saltpeter" (which is potassium nitrate) during 24 to 48 hours at a temperature of 29 degrees Celsius. Pretent to maintain the temperature at a constant level. We use a breeding station.
You need about 2 grams of saltpeter for 200ml of water aproximately. If you don´t find it at one of your local suppliers you can buy it in our online shop.
If you don´t have saltpeter available you should at least put some dish liquid into the water in order to smoothly humidify the seeds.
The popular belief that tea has the same effect is not true.
Furthermore, tea is not sterile which may stimulate the growth of bacteria at an early stage and lead to putridity of the seeds later.
Don´t forget to label them with a permanent (water resistant) ink.
It´s a common beginner´s mistake.
Then it might be complicated to recognize the variety later, depending on how many you are cultivating at the same time. In our green houses we are currently hosting about 1,800 hot pepper plants. You can imagine how important labeling is at that stage.
That was our entry article of the new series "Insight Into The Hot Pepper Business". We hope you´ve enjoyed it and will stay tuned for the following ones.
We are furthermore planning to produce a vlog in several languages in order to support the series with moving images.
Please feel free to send us your questions or share your personal experiences. We would be happy to interact, benefit from each other and "grow" together.
Best
Team 
Our website & shop: https://www.semillas.de/