My Overwinter Room

I'm in Sweden, the outdoor grow season is fairly short and unpredictable. I mostly plant in pots so I can move them to the greenhouse, outdoors or into the house all depending on the weather. I was going to choose my best potted plants from this year and over winter them but when it came to it I decided they are all my best plants. So I now have a room in the house with 30 plants over wintering. They only receive natural sunlight and a little bit of light from the house lights. It rarely gets above 0C outside over winter and the days are very short, but everything is doing well. Apart from a piri piri that's about to enter its 3rd year everything was started from seed at the beginning of this year. The amount each plant was (or in some cases wasn't) cut back was done just so I could fit them in the room next to windows, some I could keep without trimming anything off, others had a few branches removed, and a few had to be reduced to just the main stem. As I said above everything is happy and they have all have new growth. They have been in the house since around mid September when the first frosts came.


This won't be a grow long but I will keep it updated

 

[Swinglish]

The foliage looks even better when you find out that I have never had to feed them, they have been sitting in the same pots/soil mix since around may/June last year. They produced tons of pods in the summer and well into winter (after moving them indoors) it's been a mild winter without much snow this year, but it's been very cloudy I think we have had about 30 hours sun since November!! As soon as spring comes and they start picking up again I will give them a little root trim and report them in a fresh soil mix which will hopefully get me through the season again without having to feed them.

The mix I made is roughly...

5 parts potting soil
1.5 parts 2 year old cow manure
1 part rose soil

I will take a photo of the ingredients tomorrow so anyone who wants to try and replicate the mix can.

 

[Bookers]

Awesome. I've done the opposite. I cut back, trimmed and repotted and have been feeding... I think I have also given mine a neem OD ... We will see. I have them on detox lol.

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[FrankieFastHands]

Swinglish, those black bumps might be some type of scale. Try googling Scale insects and see what you think.

 

[CaneDog]

It doesn't look like stress related streaking/damage. Doesn't quite look like early lignification, either - though I do see early lignification low along the stem in the early photo. Doesn't look like adventitious roots, which one might expect in that location, though probably more concentrated and only lower.  Scale seems worth checking, though it doesn't quite look right for that either, at least to me.  I get the feeling I've seen or something like this plenty of times before and it's nothing to be concerned about; I just can't seem to place it to be sure one way or another.

 

[solid7]

I have these black bumps on the main stem of one of my devil's tongue over wintering plants. Anything to be concerned about?

 
Sure looks like scale, at first glance.  Have you tried squishing it?  Just firmly rub your fingers over the stem, and see what happens. If it squelches and dislodges, then yes, it's a problem.

 

[Swinglish]

I tried to rub/squish them this morning they are fairly hard and dry and break up as I scrapped them off with my finger nail, I didn't get any juice out of them. I can see damage to the plant tissue where I have removed them it reminds me of pulling a scab off my body.

I have checked all other plants and see no signs of it on any of them. They are all in the same soil mix that was mixed at the same time. This plant has never been outside.


I have attached a 2 photos showing both sides of one that I scratched off and another photo of the damage left after partially removing 2 of them (centre of photo)

 

[Bookers]

Ouch sorry for that swing!!

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[solid7]

Sure looks like dead scale.  But I'll let others see if they have ideas.  
 
Live scale tend to be lighter color, but when they die, they get dark.  The fact that it comes off like is the biggest clue.  Watch for 2 things - healing of the plant where you've scraped them off, and signs of spreading.  I'd put a piece of tape around the trunk of the plant where the last one occurs, to see if they cross it at some later time.  Scale don't move fast, and it's really hard to distinguish if they're spreading.  If you have ants in the container, that's a really bad thing, so watch for that.
 
I would also scrape a bit of media away from the plant right at the base, and see if there's anything on the main root base.

 

[Swinglish]

I think I will just assume the worst and throw it away. It's not worth risking my other plants that share the same room. I can take some cuttings from the new growth at the top which appears to be unaffected and keep them isolated until I'm sure there clean. Or just start some new ones from seed.

 

[CaneDog]

Better safe than sorry, I suppose.  Good luck with the replacements, Swinglish!

 

[solid7]

What?  NO! 
 
Scale is not a major pest... Wouldn't it be better to know, than to throw?  I mean...  What if it happens to the other plants? At the very least, maybe quarantine and observe?  Isolated treatment, to give you a baseline for future treatment? (if necessary)
 
By no means was I ever suggesting anything remotely close to culling.  Scale is one of the most minor pests to deal with...  and if the pic is what it looks like they aren't even alive.

 

[Swinglish]

I didn't cut her down, I will just monitor her and see what happens. Maybe I will take a couple of cuttings anyway, shes an extremely large plant and very fast grower It would be a shame to lose this one.

Almost all of my plants started flowering at the same time a week or so ago, I dont expect any plants to actually set fruit just yet that will come in 2-3 more months.

 

[Swinglish]

A few more, any ideas why alot of photos I upload are showing rotated in there side?

 

[The_NorthEast_ChileMan]

A few more, any ideas why alot of photos I upload are showing rotated in there side?

 
It is the stored EXIF Data that causes this.

Even if you don't have an iPhone (And this article talks about email orientation.), this is helpful, Why iPhone pictures flip when emailed, and how to fix it

Our intrepid leader posted this helpful hint.
 

If you edit the pic before uploading it will upload correctly. Editing it "saves" the orientation instead of using native, which would be the way you held the phone. Really it is uploading correctly, but other sites like FB have better software that read the orientation EXIF.

.

 

[Swinglish]

Roots are starting to grow on the carolina reaper cuttings I took a couple of weeks ago, the plant I took them from is starting to come to life aswell. Win win

 

[CaneDog]

Great work with the cuttings, Swinglish!  Those roots came in fast and look super healthy. 
 
Glad to see things are going so well with your OW grow.

 

[Swinglish]

The sun finally came out today, you can see the naga vipers leaves drooping as she isn't use to any sun light.

 

[Swinglish]

The carolina reaper cuttings I took a few weeks ago have some really nice roots on them now. I carefully tapped of as much of the seed starting mix from around there roots and potted them back in the same pots but with a proper soil mix.

 

[Bookers]

Nice! My first try died... it turned into a hollow magicwand! [emoji849]

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[Swinglish]

Sorry to hear that. I haven't had much luck rooting chili cuttings, this is the first time I have used a rooting hormone and also it's a different seed starting mix I'm using and I've had a 100% success rate. I dont know if it's the rooting hormone or the new seed mix or maybe a combination of both that's given me a perfect but I will be using this combination again. I have a piri piri that is my absolute favourite plant, I have taken 30+ cuttings from her over the last 2 years and never had a single cutting root, I think it's time for me to try again...