Gardening at night

AJ Drew

AJ Drew

Not sure if frost is going to hit tonight or tomorrow night.  It is starting to look like it will be tomorrow night, but still picking and packing by flash light just in case.  Kids helping.  Trying to get every last possible order out.  Even leaving what is left in the online store up till the last moment.  The flashlights bobbing up and down along with the colder weather got me to thinking on temperature and light.

Like many pepper growers, I look to literature on growing canabis because those growers are often top notch due to the money involved.  In those sources, I have read warnings about interrupting light cycles.  From what I have read, it can cause plants to get confused and stop producing right.  Although I don't think flash lights for a short period of time will harm peppers, nor does it matter this close to the first frost, I am wondering about mid summer lighting.

When the temperatures get over 100, I have a hell of a time not getting wicked tired very fast.  Have been thinking about putting some street light type things or maybe flood lights up on top of some poles.  Goal being to escape the summer heat by doing my weeding and other work after dark.

What do you think?  Would lighting up sections of the field to garden at night confuse the heck out of the peppers, maybe retard pod production?

OK, back to the garden... where did my flashlight go?
 
  Im up with ya AJ,if i get thru the 36 degree night,I buy 10 more ripening days.I am spraying water every hour to hour and a half until daylight.Worked great last year for me.Were the hell is my coffey.On your lighting,I am no expert but I don't think the lights you plan on using being that far away would  throw out the spectrum or whatever to affect them much.
 
I think it is a win win situation.
Fresher pods and fresher gardener!
Urban legend has it that fruits and vegies harvested when cooler will stay fresher longer.
 
I know while growing the other I'd use green gels over my light source it was rarely ever needed but green leaves have a helluva time absorbing green light and lessens the chance of hermaphrodites developing with unstable strains
 
joogiebop, yes have read that green light doesnt bother them.  But so not going to go there.  The main field is three acres.  I would have Mulder and Skully investigating the odd green lights of Kentucky.  Swamp gas.
 
ajdrew said:
joogiebop, yes have read that green light doesnt bother them.  But so not going to go there.  The main field is three acres.  I would have Mulder and Skully investigating the odd green lights of Kentucky.  Swamp gas.
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Lmfao true true that would be classic tho
 
Peppers are not photosensitive annual plants that use the hours of daylight to know when fall / winter is coming and it's time to flower and set seed before death. You're fine.
 
I have my peppers in pots. I bring them inside when outdoor temps are too cold. I never gave my plants the same amount of sun every day, especially not when it really started producing. Sometimes I even forgot it inside for a day. Random days it got no sun every week. It didn't screw up anything really. I still got dozens of peppers. So I don't think light is going to screw them up. I even left pepper plants inside under LED light for way longer than normal sunlight hours. It didn't care at all. 
 
dugB, any clue what triggers fruiting?  Is it just age?  I know temperature can inhibit, heat can cause flowers to drop, cold can cause growth to slow, but what do you suppose sends the signal to start?  Sort of a plant puberty?  It does seem the earlier I start the earlier I get pods and nothing ever plays catch up.  Other crops, corn comes to mind, seems to not care when planted within reason.  Plant weeks apart and I still get first ears about the same time.  Its like the late planted corn catches up with the earlier planted corn.
 
ajdrew said:
dugB, any clue what triggers fruiting?  Is it just age?  I know temperature can inhibit, heat can cause flowers to drop, cold can cause growth to slow, but what do you suppose sends the signal to start?  Sort of a plant puberty?  It does seem the earlier I start the earlier I get pods and nothing ever plays catch up.  Other crops, corn comes to mind, seems to not care when planted within reason.  Plant weeks apart and I still get first ears about the same time.  Its like the late planted corn catches up with the earlier planted corn.
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I think for peppers, flowering is "triggered" by maturity / age as long as it's environment is good.

Peppers don't have a separate grow and bloom phase like cannabis. Outdoors cannabis will flower in the fall when the days get shorter and plants will all start to flower around the same time regardless of when they sprouted. Indoors the grower controls the length of the days by the number of hours the lights are on so one can control exactly how long they want the plant to focus on growth and then exactly when to make the plant start flowering. Technically you could keep a Cannabis plant alive forever indoors and never let it flower by ensuring it gets at least say 16 hours of light per day. Plants like this are very sensitive to changes in light cycle. Indoor cannabis growers go through great lengths to make sure that their plants see no light when it's supposed to be night time (that's why you see things like grow tents and boxes used). They don't like to "confuse" the plants... they believe light leaks can cause anything from delayed flowering, to lower yield, or even cause a plant to become a hermaphrodite (produce both male and female flowers which is bad in the cannibus world since only seedless female flowers are wanted). This is probably what you've read about and doesn't apply to peppers.

I've never grown corn but from what you said it sounds like it sets ears based on time of year. I would guess that it uses hours of daylight as a trigger too.
 
I agree with above. Not all plants have photoperiod triggers that would turn on/off flowering like cannabis. Even if they would, it might not be an issue because of several factors:
  • Time needed to trigger anything would most likely not be exceeded
  • LED or any other lights emit way lower amounts of light than sun, so the effect of two additional hours would most likely not affect the plant at all
  • Chillies just don't bother checking the watch :)
There is something else, I've notice about the chillies. I'm not sure if it's just different varieties or even just specific seedling genetics, but one of the plants never got to grow fruit. Cold and wet weather made all the chillies drop their leaves with only several half rotten leaves still attached. Not this one - it's just as fresh as it was in the middle of the summer. Dark green, flowering like a boss, and I've just noticed it even managed to get 3 tiny fruits ripe. And I mean tiny! And all seem to have exploded because of wet weather. Go figure. If it doesn't freeze when frost arrives, I'll take it inside. Might be evergreen. :D:D:D
 
Hogleg, those are the exact type of light I was considering.  On growing cannabis: more trouble than it is worth.  Nothing against it, but from being illegal for so long even the people in legal states have to put up with so much grief.  Banks dont want to take your money, credit card folk dont want to let you process, teens want to rip you off, your competition wants to rip you off, the states take something like 25%, and everything is licensed and monitored to death.  In a legal state, I would forget to file something some year and wind up in prison.  In an illegal state, pride would make me show off my plants and I would wind up in prison.

I respect folk who have the balls to do it, but damn them some big low hung brass sets they got.
 
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randyp said:
  Im up with ya AJ,if i get thru the 36 degree night,I buy 10 more ripening days.I am spraying water every hour to hour and a half until daylight.Worked great last year for me.Were the hell is my coffey.On your lighting,I am no expert but I don't think the lights you plan on using being that far away would  throw out the spectrum or whatever to affect them much.
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Holy hell, you are devoted. How many plants / peppers do you have that this is worth doing?
 
tehhotpepper said:
 
 
Holy hell, you are devoted. How many plants / peppers do you have that this is worth doing?
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  20 to 25 with about a thousand unripe pods that need 1 more week ;)
 
Fairly sure in Florida there are folk with orange orchards who set up propane heaters and heat the outside air to avoid frosts at times.  My guess is you have to have the heat under the canopy for something like that to work.  If all you have to do is survive a few hours and then smooth sailing for weeks, it is worth it. 
 
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