Extending the Growing Season

[EBHarvey]

After an early-July disaster involving a mislabelled fertilizer that nearly killed all my plants, everyone recovered nicely.  But now it's almost September and I'm just starting to get the hot-and-heavy flowering I would have otherwise had going on by mid July.  I've harvested only a few dozen pods in total, from a few dozen plants, and am really bummed that the 8 months of love and work I've put into these plants will have gone to waste.  
 
With an average first frost date 4-6 weeks off I'm looking at ways to extend the season enough to actually harvest something substantial.  I was thinking about constructing a poly tent to go over a whole section of my garden or just digging up the most pod-loaded plants and putting them in 5 gallon buckets in my sunroom until the pods ripen.
 
Any other ideas, or considerations about these approaches?  Anyone tried this or something similar and had success?

 

[sreinhard88]

Have you considered moving them indoors under some lights for the winter? The intial setup has proven to be a bit costly (this will be my first time growing indoors, looks like the total will be around $250-$275), but from what I've read I should be able to keep my plants productive during the winter and they'll have a head start next spring, so I'd say the startup cost is worth it.

 

[muskymojo]

I've done the poly tent thing, and kept my plants going until the end of November in MN. I used a small space heater on cold nights. It worked great.

 

[EBHarvey]

Have you considered moving them indoors under some lights for the winter? 

 
Yes, and I do plan on overwintering quite a few of them, but when I do I'll be chopping off a good amount of the plant  to compensate for the smaller root structure, colder temps, and less light, so I don't think ripening pods will be part of that same process, or possible for those particular plants.