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What is the lowest temp you put your chinenses outside ?

darkb16a1

darkb16a1

Hi,

when do you usually think " this is warm enough during the night" and decide to move your plants outside ? We have quite high temps during the day here in CZ these days, up to 85 F , but at night it drops sometimes even to 45 F . I have a greenhouse but it's so small that it does not really hold any extra heat from the day, at night it may be 2-3 degrees F more than outside, but that's it.

What's your opinion ?
 
You should be fine. My Chinense are outside right now and our nights temp are geting done to 8 C or so. On the nights it gets done to 5 or below i bring them in. but the other nights they stay outside and are still showing growth and are flowering. Best of luck!
 
I have an unheated hoophouse to protect the tomatoes, eggplant and about forty chiles inside. Nighttime low temperatures here have often been between 3 and 4 degrees celsius and the Orange Habaneros I planted are doing fine. My setup is shown in detail on my glog. I think the key to the whole thing is putting down black plastic thermal mulch on the ground after the bed was prepared, and then putting the hoophouse up over it. The sun hits the thermal mulch and makes heat, the ground underneath absorbs the heat and radiates it after sundown and the plastic sheeting traps the heat. A couple of my neighbors tried hoophouses of their own to start basil and tomatoes but without the black plastic on the ground inside they all died. Hope this helps.
 
The general rule is 50 F. They can survive one or two nights in colder weather, but can't last long. It got down to 38 last night. My plants will be fine as long as it doesn't do it again. lol
 
Yeah if your plants are pretty well established then under 50 should be okay. If it goes below 40 then I personally would bring them in. I made the mistake in my earliest hardening off attempts of putting my plants out when it was 37 outside. They went into shock and lost most of their leaves.
 
My Scorpions have been outside for a month now. It has gotten down into the mid 30's and they are still ok. As long as they dont get a hard frost/freeze, they will survive. Pepper plants are fairly tough. But yeah, the general rule is 50 and up and its ok. Mine are growing a little slow, but there is still a long grow season ahead so I am not worried.
 
I have my pepper plants in a home made green house for the last 1.5 months and it got down to 25F several times and they are doing fine.
I have a little cheap walmart heater in there that I turn on at night.
greenhouse2.jpg
 
Mine get below 5C many nights. 3.3C is the lowest temp on memory on my thermometer and no problems whatsoever, although mine are in a greenhouse protected from wind, rain, etc.
 
IMO, the age of the plant makes a huge difference. I follow the 50F rule religiously for babies, and will not put them out if the temp is below that. Older plants I'll leave outside down to 40F. Like mentioned above, the growth will be slow below 50F, but as also mentioned, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending upon timing and your personal needs.
 
If I am hardening them off then I don't like to go below 55. If they are first year plants already hardened in the spring 40 or so. If second year plants in the spring then I don't worry about them unless it is supposed to drop below freezing. In the fall I like to let the frost get to them and rid them of foliage before moving into the garage for overwintering. 24 hours at 35-40 will not kill them, just slow them down a whole heep.
 
Good point Millworkman---My plants are 3-5 months old and they are in 1 gallon pots with with a lot of company so it will pretty hard to crock them at this late date---but I did almost yesterday because I did not water them for a few days. Even 1 gal pots run out of water when the temp gets up in the 70s.
 
I have a question for all you experienced peppers growers. How about annums? Are they able to grow more when it is cooler? Can they take anything that is above freezing?
 
Annuums for me are generally more sensitive to the cold. They drop flowers a lot more than the chinense do when its cooler.
 
millworkman said:
Annuums for me are generally more sensitive to the cold. They drop flowers a lot more than the chinense do when its cooler.
Click to expand...

+1 it got down to 39 F a couple of weeks ago here,and a couple of my anuums lost most of their leaves. My chinenses were all fine.
 
It's 6-7 C at night over here, the plants just seem to grow a lot slower than the ones inside, but i think that has more to do with temperatures during daytime...
 
Thanx everyone for the responses ! I could not keep the plants indoor anymore as they were getting simply too tall, to moved them to the greenhouse and if temps drop below 5 C I'll simply use the electric heater for a couple of hours at night.

Some pics made when moving the plants outside are in my glog :) link in signature.
 
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