• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

overwintering Over wintered plants. UK climate

Ok its time again to get cracking on with a second year at chilli growing...cant wait....but i have a couple of questions about overwintered plants please.

At the end of last season i saved 3 plants. Scotch bonnet, habenaro and a demon. All of them plodded on through winter on my window sill (much to the wifes dismay :( ) I trimmed the right back following information id gained from this forum.

Now the scotch bonnet is loooking in bad health, its got droopy yellowing leaves, and growth seems much slower than the other two. I have had problems with greenfly intermitently through winter (used soapy water each time to kill them). Its just been repotted into some fresh soil and compost mix and placed in our greenhouse to see if that helps it along. things i noticed when removing it from the old pot were, very small root ball, almost rotton looking (very brown roots), a number of worms, and a couple of lavae thingys. just to top it off its snowed today like 3-4inch so its probably gotten quite cold last night and again tonight (not checked on it today, but my dad has been and put a parafin heater in there to help things along and help the fresh seedlings). It was very sunny last week 20dec C plus, hence the repottign and putting them out in the greenhouse.......crazy barmy british weather

Now the habenaro and demon seem to be doing well, I repotted them. fresh leaves are growing quite fast. But they are covered in buds. Im unsure what to do, ie let them flower and produce fruit or nip them to maybe encourage foliage growth to haw they were before pruning for winter? Ive nipped probably half off each plant but they came back fast.

one last thing, that demon plant is ace, its a warrior. It germinated very very late. got mollested by a slug as a small seedling, dropped from 8 foot onto the floor as a small plant and split it. dropped again, dropped into a bowl of soapy water when sorting the greenfly out. But it keeps on going, brillaint little dude!

Cheers and lets have a good un for 2012!
 
Blimey! Snow in April is pretty mad ain't it!?
Sorry, cant help with the questions though :(
 
2 out of 3 isn't horrible, Mini. Why don't you
post some pics and folks can see better what
might be wrong with the SB?
 
yes I'm glad that I have managed 2 of 3, especially since its my first time :) hopefully get some photos this evening of my plants.
 
Hi,

Ok been to get some photos today. what do you guys think please?

The poorly SB
IMAG0022.jpg



IMAG0023.jpg



looks like its trying to grow?
IMAG0024.jpg



-------------------------------------------

the hardy demon, hab, and my new seedlings.
Pulled some more flower buds off today to try to oget them to grow leaves....hope i have donr right?

IMAG0021.jpg



IMAG0020.jpg



IMAG0025.jpg
 
I would back off on the water and ferts. Brown roots are also not good, you could have had root rot or something from overwatering. Did the root ball stink at all? The brown/yellow leaves look like fert burn to me and your soil looks too wet. Wait for the pots to get light and dry at least an inch or two down before watering. Also fertilizer shouldn't be needed much if at all at this stage since they're mostly just trying to recover, not go into full growth. If you just potted up in fresh soil that should have some good nutrients as well for a couple weeks.

If you get any photos or a description of the little buggies you're seeing that might help too.
 
cheers,

i think maybe the watering over the cold months may have been too excessive. I gave the plants one very weak mix of tomatoe feed over the winter, but nothing since. The roots did not seem to smell, just brown and not a very big root ball on it.
The bugs have since been squished.
Hopefully we will get anther good warm spell to hopefully help these dudes along.
 
Back
Top