Chilli seeds

Just a question from a newbie.Is it possible to grow a chilli plant from the seeds taken directly out of a chilli pepper,or do they have to be taken out and dried and left untill next season?I suppose I`m really asking are they sort of programmed to "wait" dormant for the 7 odd months from the end of summer to spring or given a sunny warm enviroment are they ready to grow straight away?Hope this doesn`t sound too daft to answer,any replies will be appreciated .

If you have a chilli pepper plant now, let one or two of the peppers dry on the stalk. This is the absolute best way to dry seeds. When the plant is ready it will pop open the pepper to drop the seed. When this happens, your pepper seeds are ready to be planted. This is the way nature prepares the seed for the next season. But you should have no problem with planting the seeds and getting pepper plants from them.

If you are talking about using the seeds from a pepper you got at the store, may I suggest that you visit a local nursery and check their seed packets or visit an online catalog for seed packets. The online companies often carry all the most popular varieties that you can find in the store.

To try to dry seed from a pepper you got from the grocery store is chancy at best. Your best bet would be to get a packet of seeds and start from there. It's much easier as well as a greater chance of germination to let the peppers dry up naturally and collect those seeds.

OK thanks for that.I was thinking of ones I bought from the store.Also for the first time this year I have a plant on the window ledge.The flowers are just starting to appear and I was considering my options for next year.As a little experiment I split open one of the store peppers (a birds eye) and planted a few seeds in compost in seed trays, 10 days on and nothings happened.As a beginner I have much to learn!

I planted quite a few from seeds collected from a store chilli that I had just let dry out and they are growing fine.

Got 12 on the go.

Im also a beginner, but thought id give it a go and glad I did.

It's a bit hit and miss planting seeds from store bought chillies or peppers as they're often actually treated so that the seeds won't grow! So don't despair if you tried planting some and nothing happens - it doesn't necessarily mean you did something wrong! You can try again as before, or buy some seed as suggested above, they are pretty easy to grow, and great fun!