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2019 Hay Bale Pepper Patch

I've been a member for a while but never posted a grow log. My usual garden is too boring for that. I use 20-30 pots and overwinter my mama plants in a hillbilly winter shelter. Our ground here isn't good for in soil gardening and I've not been enthused enough to undertake the work and expense to build raised beds.
 
Now I have my peppers working the way I want and have the need for a much larger grow to supply a project. The main peppers I'll grow will be reaper, douglah and fatalii. For a couple of years I'll do hay bale gardens and heap tons of organic trash into the area. I have monumental amounts of pine straw, oak leaves and bonfire ash every year to dump in the walkways. I think this will do a world of good to make this new garden area mo'betta for eventual in ground growing.
 
I closed off a 38x38 patch in the NE field that gets full sun. This is the area I chose. The big painted guy is my fertilizer supplier.
 
The little painted guy is my running buddy and load inspector.
 
 
 

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The patch had good heat before the storm. It was 75 Monday. 71 yesterday morning at 4 am  before the front passed. After that it went straight down to 43 by 8 am with that beastly wind throughout the day and into the night. This morning at 4 am, 28.6. I haven't been out to the patch yet but I'm hoping for signs of life.
 
The patch had good heat before the storm. It was 75 Monday. 71 yesterday morning at 4 am  before the front passed. After that it went straight down to 43 by 8 am with that beastly wind throughout the day and into the night. This morning at 4 am, 28.6. I haven't been out to the patch yet but I'm hoping for signs of life.
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that's damn cold, I hope they make it through.

we got hit as well. but not as bad.
 
If you know its gonna freeze hard, you can pick all the decent sized green pods and bring them inside. I good majority will ripen before going bad.

And if it only got down to 28 for one night you should be fine. Might loose a couple of the more finicky types
 
Here's what happened. I set the data logger to take a reading every 15 minutes. 11 hours 15 minutes below freezing (between the red lines). 7 hours of that was below 28° (between the blue lines). The recorded low was 26.1 and for 2½ hours the temperature was 26.2 or less.
 
I doubt the plants are killed but most of the tender growth is done for. Pods frozen, thawed and sloppy. Leaves and stems look like month old spinach. I'm sure I'll find more good pods and see new growth rather quickly but for now, being in there is like exploring a whale carcass. Lots of good hanging compost in the process of dripping off.
 
It's ok.. I'm so tired of processing pods I could scream. And another thing, this could have been over months ago with any hit from a tropical storm so anything past Dorian (forecast by the meteorologist in chief to make a direct hit on Alabammy) was all bonus time :onfire:
 
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Walchit said:
If you know its gonna freeze hard, you can pick all the decent sized green pods and bring them inside. I good majority will ripen before going bad.

And if it only got down to 28 for one night you should be fine. Might loose a couple of the more finicky types
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I did cut off about a yard of tasty branches loaded with pods. I hauled them under a roof and covered them. I'll hang those on the fences to ripen.
 
CaneDog said:
Bummer about the hit they took, but cool that you collected the data.  Do you know what the ambients were like or how low it got outside the patch?  Glad to hear you pulled some branches with pods first.  Hope they recover so you get your break, then more pods.
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Yep, this was some crazy weather. Typically we never see anything like this until January or February.
 
The temp sensors around the house showed 27 for a little while but the large flat bottom stainless steel kitty water bowl  on the concrete back porch never did freeze even though the air temp was so cold. My little freeze testing things away from the house were still frozen solid at 9 AM.
 
No breaks yet. I still have 3½ of those 7 gallon totes to finish processing.
 
BDASPNY said:
that's one hell of a cold hit. hope they snap back for you. I haven't gone out to see the carnage here. im sure it prob ruined whats left out there.
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There may be tender parts throughout the patch that survived but I'm not hopeful. What I'll be looking for now is to learn if the wood survived but that won't make any production going forward.
 
If the wood survived and shoots some sprouts, it may be worthwhile to think about cutting everything down close and covering deeply with leaves and manure just to see what happens. I think plants subjected to continually stable cool and dark conditions in a basement can go dormant but I wonder about outdoors where they'll be subjected to hot days with full sun throughout the winter? I have no idea if a pepper plant can go dormant under those conditions. Any thoughts?
 
Uhhhh that sounds intreguing!  :surprised:
 
How cold does it usually get there? I wonder if you have a cold streak in January/Feb, won't the ground freeze up solid? 
That would mean you'd have to really bury the stems. 
 
Let's say you bury them 15 inches deep. That would save them from freezing to death, but I feel they might turn into compost themselves. Just guessing here.
 
Either way, ya can't go wrong: you end up with monsters next year -well.. even bigger than now- OR you get extra organic matter in the soil.
 
:metal:
 
DWB said:
There may be tender parts throughout the patch that survived but I'm not hopeful. What I'll be looking for now is to learn if the wood survived but that won't make any production going forward.
 
If the wood survived and shoots some sprouts, it may be worthwhile to think about cutting everything down close and covering deeply with leaves and manure just to see what happens. I think plants subjected to continually stable cool and dark conditions in a basement can go dormant but I wonder about outdoors where they'll be subjected to hot days with full sun throughout the winter? I have no idea if a pepper plant can go dormant under those conditions. Any thoughts?
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honestly im not sure at all. it cant hurt to try that plan out. with the way they've grown they could bounce back as soon as it warms up.
 
Hey DWB, you do this thing with your wasted peppers, right? I don't mean the BSF larvae, but I've seen you mention a container of rotting peppers for 'compost tea'. I've been looking for some details on that, but I can't see to find it. I have a bucket of peppers unsuitable for consumption, so I'd like to make some use out of them. Could you maybe tell me some more about it?
 
PaulG said:
No air stones or anything? Do you just pour off
the water to use on the plants? How will you
'process' it, if at all?
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No stones, no nothing. They're just tanks of rotting sludge being eaten by BSF larvae. I haven't poured off anything although I do have a keg tap to install into the side of the one that's sleeved and socked, per advice of Solid7. But I haven't done that yet. Not eager to get up close and personal with any of this drek to deal with something like that.
 
Not sure what I'll do with this merde but for a while it will be nothing other than dump more scrap and maybe dip some out to start another 15 gallon bucket of slop. Depends on the BSF, I suppose. There are still zillions of those critters in there but I think they may go somewhat dormant with the cold. Since the first cold snap two weeks ago I don't see them doing much but once in a while I see a "fountain" of them boiling up to do whatever it is they do. Mostly they've been very lazy lately. Maybe they're compost themselves after their very frigid night this week.
 
Next spring I'll use some or all of this stuff in my new garden rows before I plant.
 
Edit to add yummy worm gazpacho picture. This is the current state of the bucket in the picture I posted earlier today.
 
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