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Damn... it looks like it's that time again. Freeze warning tonight.

U

UltraZelda64

Luckily I was notified two days ahead of time, because I noticed a freeze warning was posted for my area yesterday, expected to occur from later tonight through tomorrow morning. It's only about 10AM right now, but it's pretty chilly, wet and cloudy--definitely not looking good for tonight. The high is only supposed to be 52°, but apparently it will get down to 32° sometime in the morning, and the way it still feels and looks out there I believe it.

So that leaves me with a problem. All of my plants are in pots. In fact, for most of them, I can just carry them in; no big deal. But the Rocoto Red... that thing's a monster, and I'll be needing help to carry that thing in tonight and then back out tomorrow, and I'll risk damaging it both times in the process. And if there's any chance of a string of decent days coming up, I'd prefer to let it go outside for as long as possible... after all, it seems to love the cooler temperatures in general, the last couple falls it just exploded. Problem is, every year it just gets bigger... and bigger... and this year, it's just wild (probably about 50 peppers, many buds getting ready to open still...).

So, the question is... would it be safe to just put a frost cloth over the plant during a freeze warning, or would that be risking it too much? Keep in mind that the plant is, of course, in a pot (a big one), so the root system is also vulnerable and the high is expected to be 52° today, so that leaves only 20° degrees before the potential of freezing occurs.
 
I'd say cover it and put as close to your house as possible. The warmth from the house may make it better. Uncover the next day and start over with covering the next night if needed.

Gotta try something if can't get it indoors. That or cut it back to the pods and try growing in house overwintering..

Have the same over here in SW Pa. with the the Fost Warning tonight and lows in the low 30's for like 3 or 4 more nights. Put all my potted plants in an outside garage and some of the smaller potted ones in basement. Going to have the 6' tall Butch T plants in ground covered and hope for the best.

Sometimes all good things must come to an end.
 
If it is an absolute low of 32 then a blanket will be sufficient on your Pubescens. They can handle lows better than Chinense and Annuums when it comes to cold. And especially if you are worried about damaging it then I would leave it be. Last year someone posted up a very interesting way of keeping their plants a few degrees warmer overnight. Take some of those big bulb-ed old school Christmas lights and wrap your plant then cover. Will boost the temp under the cover and protect from freeze except maybe on the very outside branches touching the cover. Either way, good luck!
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I think what I'm going to do is leave the plant outside, but cover it. But instead of leave it where it has been all year, I'll put it in a little corner on the floor porch. As it is, it's already on the porch--but I'm thinking putting it on the floor, closer to the building itself, and cover it. This way, I'm thinking three things will happen to help prevent it from getting to the extremes:
  • It will be somewhat better protected from the cold winds because for the most part, the ledges on the porch will block much of the wind from getting through, which would likely get in from under the frost cloth.
  • It will be closer to the house, hopefully the little bit of warmth radiating from the building helps. Lately I have been putting the furnace on, so theoretically that's a plus right there.
  • Frost cloth... well, no explanation needed there.
I think those three things will help to do the trick. I really would prefer to leave it outside for as long as possible... the longer it gets proper light the better.
 
k. skwerl said:
Got any pics of the plant??
Click to expand...

Sure. Since you asked, I just snapped a quick pic just a little bit ago. I couldn't take the photo outside; there's just not enough room on the porch. I had to come inside the house, open the window and the screen, and take a picture that way, so it's sort of a distant "aerial" view... heh. It was taken on my phone, not exactly a great camera, but good enough. It's still cloudy, cool, dark and just crappy out there, which you can probably make out in the photo. Sorry about the the lilac bush that's kind of in the way in the background, adding green to make it more difficult to see the Rocoto... anyway, already took one ripe pepper off of the plant a couple weeks ago; there's another you can see on the right getting ready to be removed.

https://picasaweb.go...638998375822770

BTW... is there any way to upload pictures directly to the forums? I'd rather go that route than use Picasa Web Albums, really. At least until I get my web albums account fully set up (uploaded all the pictures of my cats which are meant to be private; haven't got around to uploading all the pics of my plants yet though, which I intend to eventually use for future posts).
 
No there is no direct u/l to the forum and we don't mind pictures of cats. Unless they are nude. :shocked:

I'm in about the same situation with freezing, they barely escaped damage a couple times but it's supposed to get down to 30F Wed. night and too many plants to make it practical to move them around and cover them every time it "might" frost or freeze. Looks like I'll soon have tons of peppers to process and then a lot more free time to eat them.
 
Dave2000 said:
No there is no direct u/l to the forum and we don't mind pictures of cats. Unless they are nude. :shocked:

I'm in about the same situation with freezing, they barely escaped damage a couple times but it's supposed to get down to 30F Wed. night and too many plants to make it practical to move them around and cover them every time it "might" frost or freeze. Looks like I'll soon have tons of peppers to process and then a lot more free time to eat them.
Click to expand...
There are direct uploads to the forum if you are Extreme :) It is in the more reply options.
 
Dave2000 said:
What am I missing to do that? I see the "Image" icon in the more reply options posting box but that just links to an off-site pic.
Click to expand...

At the bottom when you are logged in there is a "Post" and "More Reply Options" button. If you click on "More Reply Options" it will pull up a reply box with full options. Now that I'm typing this in the quck reply I see it here as well, but there is a little icon right below, and slightly left, of the smiley face. If you hover your mouse over this it says "Image". That is what Joyner is talking about. It allows you to post the URL for a direct pic.
 
millworkman said:
If it is an absolute low of 32 then a blanket will be sufficient on your Pubescens. They can handle lows better than Chinense and Annuums when it comes to cold. And especially if you are worried about damaging it then I would leave it be. Last year someone posted up a very interesting way of keeping their plants a few degrees warmer overnight. Take some of those big bulb-ed old school Christmas lights and wrap your plant then cover. Will boost the temp under the cover and protect from freeze except maybe on the very outside branches touching the cover. Either way, good luck!
Click to expand...

That is an awesome idea, lol.
 
spicy_echo said:
At the bottom when you are logged in there is a "Post" and "More Reply Options" button. If you click on "More Reply Options" it will pull up a reply box with full options. Now that I'm typing this in the quck reply I see it here as well, but there is a little icon right below, and slightly left, of the smiley face. If you hover your mouse over this it says "Image". That is what Joyner is talking about. It allows you to post the URL for a direct pic.
Click to expand...

But that's not uploading it to the forum, that's linking to it elsewhere which is no easier than uploading to your host like imageshack/etc either way and copying the forum code link from there instead of the direct image link.

Back on topic my plants were lucky to have only the slightest frost damage after it got down to 30F last night, just the two newest pairs of leaves on each fork on my tallest chinense plants. It probably helped that there are large trees not too far away and that most were on the patio, though I had other types of plants in the ground elsewhere which also survived. No freezing temps predicted for at least another 3 weeks, I may just get a chance to ripen up more green peppers on the plants than I realized I had growing till I saw them last night.
 
This really sucks. They changed the forecast, ruining my original plans. Originally it was supposed to be around 31-32 tonight... now 30 or less (depending on which forecaster you go by). So again, one more very bad night before the temperature supposedly warms up a decent amount for several days (and nights). I wasn't so worried about 31 degrees, because the plant made it without a single frost-related bruise the night it was forecasted to get down to 32. And it did; I just don't know how long it was down there. But Weather.com says 30 tonight, AccuWeather says 28... I don't know what to believe. AW was (surprisingly) right a full day or two ahead of time last time, but I've seen them very, very wrong as well.

I'm thinking about putting the plant in the garage and then still covering it up, but watering it with warm water before covering it. Just in case it does, in fact, get that low. I also have the frost cloth on the hot air register and am leaving it on there for a bit to warm it up some--not sure how well that'll work, it'll just cool down anyway and it won't do anything about the already 50-degree air outside, but it's worth a shot.

Has anyone here had a Rocoto and seen firsthand just how low they can go (covered with cloth, of course)?

If the weather cooperates after this, the next time it is set to go down below 32 I'm bringing the plant in the house--but tonight's the only night currently on the next ten days' forecast to get that low. When I first started growing peppers a few years ago, I would've never imagined I would have a potted plant so big I would have a hard time getting it in the doors (without some wicked pruning).

[What the...? The following was actually posted and meant to appear as a second post, separate from the one above... but the forum software is automatically merging them. Oh well. Below is the second post, a reply to the previous post by Dave2000 that I didn't originally see when I posted the first one above.]

Dave2000 said:
Back on topic my plants were lucky to have only the slightest frost damage after it got down to 30F last night, just the two newest pairs of leaves on each fork on my tallest chinense plants. It probably helped that there are large trees not too far away and that most were on the patio, though I had other types of plants in the ground elsewhere which also survived. No freezing temps predicted for at least another 3 weeks, I may just get a chance to ripen up more green peppers on the plants than I realized I had growing till I saw them last night.
Click to expand...

I'm actually starting to wonder if I'm just paranoid. Were the plants just outside, covered? I remember a few years ago I had some plants (mostly C. chinense) that were in the ground and they survived many nights that approached freezing. The thing is, I don't remember what the general temperature pattern was, and it's not really fully translatable to the plant this year for a few reasons. First, this year it's just a C. pubescens I'm mostly worried about; second, the plant is three years old (those were in their first year, less mature); and third, all of those plants were in the ground, this year's plants are all in pots.

I do know that I still gave them special treatment (ie. a deep watering with very warm water at night and filling gallon just of hot water to warm the air before covering them) and that probably helps in-ground plants in ways that don't work quite as well as potted plants. But I recall in those conditions and with those treatments, I got plants to survive through November (quite an accomplishment, I think, according to what everyone told me--especially considering it was my first or second year growing them; they even lived through several random nights of snow that year before I gave up because the conditions were just starting to get too bad).

The Rocoto, I understand that it is "more cold tolerant" than the rest when it comes to other Capsicums, but I've never seen any definite answers as to how tolerant in terms of exact temperatures (too many variables probably). I have witnessed the plant in its first year, three years ago; when I was just about to trash it in disappointment, the first pepper that I somehow missed all along ripened out of nowhere when fall temperatures struck. And while at that time every other plant was really starting to look nasty, the Rocoto really took off as the temperatures dropped and fall progressed.

Either way, I decided to just hope Weather.com is right and it only gets down to 30; I went the lazy route and just left the plant on the porch again. The plant impressed me many times over the years... I have faith in it. It has amazed me several times in the last few years.
 
They called for low of 28° here in SW Pa last night. Well ends up it's 36° here now at 6 am.
Weather forecasting must be a guessing game.
Going to 65° today and lows in the 50's tonight and tomorrow night. High 75° on Sunaday.
I got about all my peppers off the plants the other day thinking was done for.
Strange weather, but like I said before..all good things must come to an end.
Until next year for me.
Good luck with that Rocoto plant.
You might have another week of good weather for it.
 
Hardfeeeze last night in CT - brought my pots in the garage.....27 deg right now at 7:30am in Northern CT......grass covered in frosty rime....
 
Wow... I can't believe this. Not one, both *both* forecasters were so wrong it's not even funny. The "low" was 35 or 36 degrees (again, depending on which forecaster you trust). So absolutely no problem at all; I don't know if frost would have been expected, but if not the plant probably could have even been left uncovered. :confused:

It's things like these that cause me to normally track the next day's forecast throughout the current day (or at least up to 5-8PM), because sometimes they'll update the low if their predictions change--but this time, neither site ever changed (even early in the morning). Talk about a false alarm... that actually kind of pisses me off, really. All that trouble, for nothing.

Well add this in as another major dud by the weather forecasters, and not just one of the major ones, but two.
 
UltraZelda64 said:
I'm actually starting to wonder if I'm just paranoid. Were the plants just outside, covered? I remember a few years ago I had some plants (mostly C. chinense) that were in the ground and they survived many nights that approached freezing. The thing is, I don't remember what the general temperature pattern was, and it's not really fully translatable to the plant this year for a few reasons. First, this year it's just a C. pubescens I'm mostly worried about; second, the plant is three years old (those were in their first year, less mature); and third, all of those plants were in the ground, this year's plants are all in pots.
Click to expand...

I had all of my peppers on a concrete patio, open air type. None were covered with anything but I did scoot them all closer together than usual. I also had a bunch of tomatoes, okra, and a few various things in the ground elsewhere. Only the tips of the taller chinense plants on the patio suffered leaf damage (blackening and substantial shriveling). The official post-forecast of how cold it was (measured 1 mi. away at the airport) was 30F, BUT they use a specific measurement technique that may not be accurate to the same digit that my plants saw. I also had some large trees not too far away that probably keep a pocket of warmer air nearby, I have noticed that there has been no frost formation under the trees at all which there has been mild frost in other areas at least twice this fall.

However, now that another day has passed I have noticed a lot of (otherwise healthy looking) leaves dropping, almost exclusively on the chinense plants. My jalapeno annuums for example, seem completely unaffected so far. The taller plants have lost maybe 20% of their leaves and time will tell if it continues but it is getting warmer here at night, no more freezing temperatures predicted until November, but that's too far ahead a forecast for me to put much faith in. Some of the leaves might have dropped anyway w/o freezing weather, I was not very nice to the plants by moving them around and pulling so many peppers off in anticipation of the overnight freeze, it had to stress them a bit.

I do know that I still gave them special treatment (ie. a deep watering with very warm water at night and filling gallon just of hot water to warm the air before covering them) and that probably helps in-ground plants in ways that don't work quite as well as potted plants. But I recall in those conditions and with those treatments, I got plants to survive through November (quite an accomplishment, I think, according to what everyone told me--especially considering it was my first or second year growing them; they even lived through several random nights of snow that year before I gave up because the conditions were just starting to get too bad).
Click to expand...

You might try watering them around 5AM, at least around here that seems to be when the temps dip the coldest, but at some point I just give up on any I'm not bringing into the garage. My garage is not heated but is attached to the house and I've managed to keep plants alive until Christmas at which point they were losing the last of their leaves so it's arguable what point you want to call them active alive/vs hibernating. We had a very mild winter last year and one plant kept in the garage all winter survived and started leafing out the next spring when they had a few days in a row of unusually warm temperatures above 80F.

The Rocoto, I understand that it is "more cold tolerant" than the rest when it comes to other Capsicums, but I've never seen any definite answers as to how tolerant in terms of exact temperatures (too many variables probably). I have witnessed the plant in its first year, three years ago; when I was just about to trash it in disappointment, the first pepper that I somehow missed all along ripened out of nowhere when fall temperatures struck. And while at that time every other plant was really starting to look nasty, the Rocoto really took off as the temperatures dropped and fall progressed.
Click to expand...

It probably has to do with something I mentioned above, that it has more resistance to dropping leaves as temperatures fall, but ultimately when the night comes that most of the leaves freeze, that's likely the end for its season and the pods will probably have frostburn and be done too.
 
So I forgot to cover the last two plants I wanted to extend for a few weeks and our first frost/freeze took everything. Home thermometer read 29 this morning. I managed to salvage what pods were left, but all the plants have suffered irreparable damage. I was hoping for a red Jalapeno, but none fully changed in time. I guess next week I begin the fermentation experiment.
 
Not really related to the OP, but it still kinda is... i use http://www.wunderground.com/ it's more of a network of end-user weather stations. as of right now, real temp on wunderground is +2 and pressure is +.14 from what my weather station is reading.
 
While I didn't lose any pods to direct frost damage when it hit 30F a few nights ago, the damage to a few of my plants is more than I first suspected. Over the last couple days, especially with brutal wind yesterday that knocked several plants over again and again, a few of my larger plants that had frost damage on the tips of the stems have now lost about 70% of their leaves and hundreds of small (marble sized) peppers, plus falling over a few times made another ~ two hundred larger pods fall off. The fallen leaves look fine, not shriveled. The plant just seems to have severed them where they meet the stems. The plants are hanging in there now, seem to have stabilized with none dead though I'm not sure about the root system on those that fell over.
 
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