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overwintering Winterizing
- Thread starter crazy8
- Start date
Buckshot said:
Yeah, the rain can foil your best plans. It's raining here now and has been raining for the past 4 days.
We still have quite a lot of time before the first frost. How much indoor space do you have you can spare for your overwintering?
A few days before your first forecast frost you could cut back the roots, leave the top growth and pot your in ground plants. This stress, as POTAWIE stated, would cause some quick ripening of existing pods and allow you to move them to a sheltered area overnight when frost is predicted. Later, if you don't want to grow them over the winter, cut back the top growth to allow more plants in your limited winter storage area.
Anything above freezing and they should survive the winter, but if you want to grow and harvest pods you'll need low temps above 60F and and ample lighting.
millworkman
Extreme Member
I feel for you guys. Hopefully I still have a month and a half to two months left. I better, all my plants are still setting pods.
millworkman
Extreme Member
smariotti said:
As far as I know, as long as you do not have a hard penetrating freeze then they can live through the winter. If your temps only get down to the low 30's a few times each winter, then I would leave them out. Try a couple of them this winter just to see if they make it. I wouldnt even cut one down just to see where the new shoots come from next year.
crazy8:
i'll doing the same thing as you, but we've already had temps here hit -1 and mine are still outside and doing just fine. Low 40s seems warm enough to keep them outside still (are you saying that low 40's is the low overnight temp?). The next time I see temps going to get close to 0C (32F) overnight then I'm bringing them in for good, but at 40F you should be fine for now.
i'll doing the same thing as you, but we've already had temps here hit -1 and mine are still outside and doing just fine. Low 40s seems warm enough to keep them outside still (are you saying that low 40's is the low overnight temp?). The next time I see temps going to get close to 0C (32F) overnight then I'm bringing them in for good, but at 40F you should be fine for now.
millworkman
Extreme Member
Ballzworth said:
I agree. If it is an over night low in the 40's I say you are fine.
Well it looks like it will be the first day of much more (a week or more) of 40 degree temps. Besides that I kind of want to get what I can into pots to help see if I can get a lot of green pods to ripen but I also dont want the extended 40 degree temps to damage anything. As far as the 40's go I am safe leaving them out then? its the below 40's I should be worrying about?
it's the freezing temperature you should worry about. If it's going to reach around 32 or below over night then bring them in. It's the frost that'll be your main enemy.
In the 40's....you're definitely safe.
In the 40's....you're definitely safe.
crazy8 said:
There's some suggestions that root pruning may help speed up the ripening process, but if you're going to be bringing them inside anyways to finish ripening I'd say what's the rush?
And how much really will the ripening process speed up? If in fact it does speed up by pruning?
I would suggest to just try and get the most you can from the outdoor season (which won't be much longer anyways) and when they ripen, they ripen.
Jim
Well some of my plants are starting to ripen now a little bit just want to make sure I have more reds then greens before the end of the season. My initial plan was to get them in pots this weekend to be ready to winterize, but as long as the 30's temps hold off then maybe I will hold off for now. In the perfect world I would like all my pods to go red in a week or so then strip all plants of pods, cut back the ones I am keeping, pot and bring inside.
Guess Ill play it by ear and see what happens.
Guess Ill play it by ear and see what happens.
The biggest issue for me potting my hab plant was that it wasn't getting full sun. My greenhouse has opaque plastic all around it so the ripening process was very slow. I dug it up, put it in a pot and trimmed back a bunch of branches as well as removed all the flowers. I put it out in direct sunlight whenever possible and it seems to have really helped it along. There are a number of pods starting to turn and hopefully I can get them to full ripe by seasons end.
I haven't decided if I want to overwinter the orange habs this year or not. I like them, but I have about 6 other hab varieties on the grow and I can buy orange habs at the grocery store so I'm kinda torn.
I haven't decided if I want to overwinter the orange habs this year or not. I like them, but I have about 6 other hab varieties on the grow and I can buy orange habs at the grocery store so I'm kinda torn.
Maybe thats what I can do and ill kill a couple birds with one stone. Maybe I will get them in pots, trim roots back and the stuff on top that doesnt have pods on them, pick flowers and small pods then I can be mostly ready for winterizing already and help ripen the pods that are there and just cut back more after pods are ripe. 
Blister said:
Same problem here. Let 'em die!
Overwintering is only really worth it for a hard to find variety that you really love.