overwintering Somes of my overwintered peppers and citrus

[Avon Barksdale]

edit: sorry for the title, meant to write "some pictures of my overwintered peppers and citrus". Had a few beers.

I can't really get pictures of the whole area, because it's a closet with a door that only allows easy access to 1/2 of it, but here are some pictures of my overwintering area. Peppers were cut back about 2 weeks ago and left outside in the cold for a while before being brought inside (because of laziness), but they're putting on new foliage now. Some have already put on quite a bit of foliage. I have 12 chiles cut back in 1 gallon pots (chocolate bhut, yellow bhut, assam bhut jolokia, naga morich, Trinidad scorpion butch T, douglah, red rocoto, canario, chiltepin, congo black habanero, trinidad scorpion mourouga, and Jonah 7 pod), 3 Butch T clones in 3.25 inch pots, plus a kumquat, Meyer lemon, and limequat tree, and a Miracle fruit. I may cut back 2-3 more to overwinter tomorrow but I'm running out of space.

Here's my overwintering procedure, copied from another thread...

I trim mine back to about 8 inches tall, leaving all the main branches, and remove most of the leaves, leaving only a few small ones. Then pull apart the root ball and untangle any roots that have become tangled and get them all separated and going in the same direction. Then I trim the rootball back to about the size of a large grapefruit. Then they go in 1 gallon containers. I place a little fresh potting mix in the bottom, then set the rootball in the pot, pour potting mix around it. Then shake the stem while pulling the plant up slowly (to distribute the potting mix around the roots without compressing the roots) until it's at the depth I want it, then fill out the rest of the space with potting mix. Then I thoroughly water the plants and keep them moist for the next week or two, and keep them out of strong sunlight (which isn't an issue here at this point in the year anyway).

 

[Avon Barksdale]

Kumquat tree

Some Meyer lemons

Limequat

 

[BigCedar]

Those look great dude! Glad to see someone else using gallon sized pots for the procedure too. I didn't know if that was too small or not. I'd say good luck but looks like you don't need it
Brandon

 

[Pepper-Guru]

Looking good bro! Mmm.. fresh limes for my beeeeeeeeerrrrr

 

[PIC 1]

Nice job with the pepper plants!

"Limequat"......pretty cool, how old is the plant?

 

[Avon Barksdale]

Not sure how old the Limequat is, but I got it as a small ~10 inch tree sometime around July as far as I can remember, it's a few months behind the Meyer lemon and kumquat. For those who don't know, a limequat is a cross between a key lime and a marumi kumquat. The kumquat is the biggest of the 3 by far, I had to trim it back some to fit it under the light, and it's really bushy. Meyer lemon is a cross between lemon and mandarin orange (or maybe some other kind of orange, I don't think anyone knows for sure).

Looking good bro! Mmm.. fresh limes for my beeeeeeeeerrrrr

Thanks. The limequats would probably be good in a Mexican-style beer. I'm thinking the Meyer lemons might be a good in a witbier, they taste like sweet, non-acidic lemons. Hopefully by Christmas time I'll have some ripe ones but it might not be until after the new year.

Those look great dude! Glad to see someone else using gallon sized pots for the procedure too. I didn't know if that was too small or not. I'd say good luck but looks like you don't need it
Brandon

Thanks, yeah gallon pots are fine. Some of those were trimmed back from very large 5'x6' plants, and the potted ones had 7 gallons of roots that were cut back to the size of a grapefruit. Chiles are tough, you can hack them down to a pretty small size and they barely skip a beat as long as you don't keep too much foliage for the roots. You can be rough with the root ball too, despite popular belief. I broke a lot of roots getting the tangles out. I'll probably keep them in 1 gallon pots until around April, when I'll pot them up to 3 or 5 gallons and do the indoor/outdoor shuffle. Around late December/early January they'll be moved in front of a window to make room for seedlings in that area, or I may buy a few compact fluorescents for them.