Re: [CH] extending the season

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• In reply to: Suzanne: "[CH] extending the season"

> Okay so maybe it is in the mid-nineties and almost July, but I have been

I hate to tell you, but it's already late-nineties :-)

> I was thinking - what if I made a cold frame and ran some of that
> pipe warming tape around inside it for night time?  Do you think its
> possible I could keep the plants outside year round?

Sure, why not.  A simple covering of 3mil, or whatever it is, greenhouse
polyethelene film gives at least 5 degrees of frost protection in my
location, like when I covered the patio with that stuff.  Then, when I
(pretty loosely I'm afraid) wrapped the film around the sides also during
winter, I've gotten at least 7-10 degrees of protection without any added
source of heat at all, and even though the cold wind still blows through to
some extent.  This amount of frost protection has been plenty enough to
keep almost everything alive during winter, and certainly all chiles, if
perhaps in suspended animation until Spring arrives.

To keep your chile plants alive over winter, all you have to do is provide
enough protection to keep hardy varieties like C. baccatum and C. pubescens
above 32 F., and higher temps than about 40 F or so for those darn
habaneros and other such finicky types.  But make no mistake, even the
hardiest don't like temps to be continuously so low, and the warmer temps
they get, even if only some of the time during daytime, the more likelihood
they'll retain the will to live.

Anyway, to keep them in production during winter, C. pubescens plants would
surely need at least 40 degrees F. nighttime minimum temps, and probably
more like about 50 F. minimum.  Many C. baccatum cultivars would probably
do with only moderately higher temps, and even some C. annuum cultivars
also (e.g. most of my cayennes continue to bloom in winter until bad frosts
finally stop them dead).  But most C. annuum, frutuscens, and especially
chinense I would imagine, need higher temps to continue blooming, bearing,
and ripening.


 ---   Brent

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