This is just my first year gardening so I don't really know much, but 3 inches seems like a lot, are you absolutely positive you didn't just somehow miss it?

It's possible but it is only a twelve inch tall plant and not very dense. I could see the pepper as soon as I walked over to it to water it. I guess it could have been less than an inch but it's now a good size pepper that stands out right in front. Every plant I have outside changed overnight after the splash of nutes. I had other peppers that were good size and solid green for almost a month but after the nutes they turned half red overnight. I have been loading up on nitrogen but this was the first good application of a balanced feed.

oh goodie what did you use! lol I could use some of that.

Okay I feel the pointing and laughing. I can't find much on it but its the cheap Expert Gardener 15-30-15. I compared it to MG but it had more micro nutes. I could have overlooked the largest pepper when it was small but it is noticeably larger again today. I'm not claiming anything special, I just wanted to see if anyone has seen them grow that quickly.

Absolutely. I planted my hot peppers mid-May and for weeks they didn't do anything. Then it got really hot overnight, and the peppers began thriving overnight. Where I had no blossoms the day before, I now had a plant full of baby peppers. It's incredible how well pepper plants will do in their ideal conditions.

Good thing you caught the seeds right when they germinated, otherwise you would have just had boiled sprouts. Yes, I have found that seeds will germinate very quickly under the ideal condions. I can get tomato plants from seed to plant in 3 days with the perfect soil and temperature and moisture.