I knew that hot peppers are extremely slow to germinate and they lived up to that expectation which is why I started them so much earlier than last year. Now my gripe is that they are taking their sweet time to develop their first true leaves. Sigh. It doesn’t pay for me to rush them into their semi permanent homes if they don’t have them.
On another note, the tomatoes that I planted for an extra early crop are up. The way things are going, they will need to be transplanted before the hot peppers! That being said, the jalapenos are doing fabulous and I did get to transplant those, plus the peperoncini, the ghost pepper and the maules red hot. It’s the other hot ones I have to wait on. Go figure! Just another day in the life of a grower. Right?!?
Notes From The Tomato Lady 
What do you use in your seedling mix?
I use a sterile seed starting mix from NuLife. I used to use Whitney Farms but apparently they were bought our buy Scotts. They were my favorite. Sigh. When I transplant them from their little trays into 3.5″ pots, I use Sunshine #2 with worm castings, steamed fish bone meal, and this year i am going to add some kelp meal, epsom salts and a little blood meal.
Good luck with them. I’ve never grown hot peppers, but I do like them, so it’s something I might try in the far off future.
I love growing hot peppers, and I find the hotter they are the more time it takes for them to germinate. That has been my experience, they also take a very long time to produce, but when they do the produce a LOT of pods.