overwintering =[ The 'Never-Winter' Thread ]=

grantmichaels

grantmichaels

There's a preponderance of information for people with seasons, and most if not all books out there have content that regurgitates variants of the same information gearing towards 'most folks' ...

Winter is short in duration here (west central Florida) and the plants can be managed easily with as little as pulling them into the carport, or perhaps covering with a sheet, or even watering them like the orange farmer folks do (so I hear) ...

Be it the stress of the few days in transit in the dark, or a little bit of enthusiasm for the intensity of Florida's sun comparatively to CCN's greenhouses, seedlings inevitably start flowing here straight away ...

I believe it might have been Pepper-Guru or another seemingly experienced grower who mentioned that there's not such a need for an evolving ratio of macro-nutes for people growing peppers continuosly ... that it's not really of benefit to grow them where you are phasing the grow/bloom nutrients and to just feed them what they wants all of the time ...

So ... in THIS climate, with little seedlings out in full Florida sun setting some early pods, what are the R/B/A's (risks, benefits, and alternatives) of pinching them off versus just letting everything go, and how would you feed them in vanilla Pro-Mix Bx (w/ myco)? ...

I'm curious to hear what other Florida and S. Cali folks and people abroad with similar climates do in this regard ...

It's like every one of mine ... they are all putting out a pod or two and I'm torn on whether to pinch them or not, and whether to feed generally or specifically in regard to blooming ...

They took their first feeding of GH Grow at 1/4 tsp/gal yesterday without overnight consequence, so that's a start ... but I'm considering feeding them some relatively dilute "bloom" and "micro" as well and I'm curious what others in similar situation do/feel about this ...

Thanks in advance for any input, I'm titled the thread such that it could be a place for anyone w/ any questions where they are keeping plants through the years and where their plants fruitful 70% of the time or what not ...













I mean, it's like practically every single one of the 48 seedlings ... just looking for a little more before I decide whether to pinch, and how to feed ...
 
I put my 4 worst looking Morugas in the ground about a month and 1/2 ago, needless to say they are doing way better than the potted ones.

I never pinch just because IMO theres no need for it here, we have the best climate in the country 9 months a year.
 
Great thread! I can't wait to see some of the responses. I wish I lived where I had such a long season. In all reality, I guess this could also go for an indoor grow as well?
 
That's probably true, I guess. Would need to have a lot of lumens/sqft to approximate the kind of light intensity we're getting, though ...
 
great thread!

I cant believe no such thread existed before :-D


I live in Santiago, where we do get some (2-5) days with morning temps below freezing ... but it never stays that cold for more than a couple of hours ... so growing around year should be feasible (albeit to a limited degree) - and be more of a logistics operation of bringing plants in at night and put them out during the day, when - even in winter - highs can go above 70ºF (20ºC).


if you dont mind my asking ... tell us more about your sexy containers (the red latern style ones - strawberry?)

thx, Al
 
IF I lived in FL i would continuously feed my plants via AACT. But if your on a certain type of nutes, I would probably tend to give them more P and K in your climate. Not exactly sure what your asking tho, I'm kinda confused with the OP.
 
Yes, exactly.

I planned to make a forum specific to people who can grow throughout w/o much fanfare, but I rather like it here at THP so I think a thread will work well-enough ...

Here's the story w/ the planters ...

The initial purchase was the topsy stand w/ and a pair of those upside down planters designed for peppers (half the height with a different spacing is all) ... I didn't want raccoons and armadillo and moles and opossums eating all of my stuff, so I was going up on poles ...

It worked well, but more soil would be better so I looked around ...

Amazon had the Topsy Tomato Tree stands w/ single large bag w/ 6 ports available for $17-$20 (1/3 orig price) shipped for free because I have Prime ... In the end, I decided that getting a sturdy post was worth $20 alone, and that once the bag broke down I'd hang paint buckets up the same way the bags are suspended ... the reason the tomato trees are available for like $20 is that when you grow tomatoes out of the side, the stem splits near it's base and trounces production, so they are clearout pricing because they are a failure as a tomato planter ...

So yeah, I just bought a pair more for another $40 and will have like 16x of them now I guess ...

Since I have that taller pole where the original pepper variety bags once were, I snagged a pair of the strawberry bags and loaded them up w/ some Evie's or whatever just for fun (the fact that there's a strawberry festival in plant city, fl means they should do fine here) ...

Anyways, cheers!

Jamison said:
IF I lived in FL i would continuously feed my plants via AACT. But if your on a certain type of nutes, I would probably tend to give them more P and K in your climate. Not exactly sure what your asking tho, I'm kinda confused with the OP.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm probably a little bit confusing ... I only get to spend a little bit of time learning how to grow (because I use the small amount of time I have to learn for learning to program computers instead) and that basically just makes me a danger to my plants =) ...

At least, however, I am going to using an AACT regiment ... are you suggesting that AACT contains sufficient nutes as well, because I was under the impression that I was primarily tipping the scales in my favor in terms of beneficial colonization of leaves and soil in doing so ...

The amounts of guano etc aren't like homeopathy levels in the tea?
 
What you are doing with the AACT is feeding the soil which in return feeds your plants. Building a soil food web. You won't need to add any nutes at all because everything is working in symbiotic relationship with the soil and roots. If your gonna go that way I suggest you read the AACT thread on here.
 
Yeah, I was totally focused on it's utility in terms of the BLS (bacterial leaf spot) I was fighting when it was put forth as a possible solution ... Didn't really think about it in terms of nutrition if you will ...
 
grantmichaels said:
Yes, exactly.

I planned to make a forum specific to people who can grow throughout w/o much fanfare, but I rather like it here at THP so I think a thread will work well-enough ...

Here's the story w/ the planters ...

The initial purchase was the topsy stand w/ and a pair of those upside down planters designed for peppers (half the height with a different spacing is all) ... I didn't want raccoons and armadillo and moles and opossums eating all of my stuff, so I was going up on poles ...

It worked well, but more soil would be better so I looked around ...

Amazon had the Topsy Tomato Tree stands w/ single large bag w/ 6 ports available for $17-$20 (1/3 orig price) shipped for free because I have Prime ...
Click to expand...

Check to see if you have a Big Lots nearby. The one near me was selling those big ones for $6 a few months ago.
 
That would be awesome for the "tomato tree" with the pole ... They have other Upside Down Tomato Planters or something like that which do not have the pole and have to be hung (which is their solution to the stem splitting, I guess) ...
 
It's the pole, my fiancé bought one for the balcony.
MEDLJPb.jpg
 
Beautiful, thanks for the tip. Maybe I'll add another 4-6x in that case ... D will be SO HAPPY when I come home w/ another bail of BX and a bunch more planters =)
 
They had just been put out and they had trouble finding it in the system, so they may have just undercharged us. I hope the stems don't crack on these tomatoes, they have been very healthy plants.
 
StupidJerk said:
Check to see if you have a Big Lots nearby. The one near me was selling those big ones for $6 a few months ago.
Click to expand...

Big lots is awesome for stuff like this. I've worked there for 10 years. We always carry these every year. We buy up "last year's" style, and sell them cheap. It could be something as small as the pattern on the outside is different from one year to the next.
 
Not sure about central florida but I'm in South Florida and "less is more" is true for this area.

Long story short the seeds I sowed in pots with good dirt and full sun haven't sprouted much while the ones I left to die in a dark corner of my yard in our terrible Florida dirt have a bunch of strong sprouts after 9 days.

Also for pruning, if it's in the shade then it'll probably need some pruning but if it's in full sun it'll need those leaves
 
cactusMD said:
Not sure about central florida but I'm in South Florida and "less is more" is true for this area.

Long story short the seeds I sowed in pots with good dirt and full sun haven't sprouted much while the ones I left to die in a dark corner of my yard in our terrible Florida dirt have a bunch of strong sprouts after 9 days.
Click to expand...

We're planning to grow some peppers along the edge of the car port in shade save for the reflected light from my neighbors south-facing white walls ... I've seen some very happy, lush looking plants that are positioned under a canopy ...
 
Pinching is useless. In a warmer winter they won't need much different than in the summer. Even in Connecticut in a cold room inside(39-50 degrees, so about 10-20 degrees warmer than outside) they grow slowly but very well. They actually grow MUCH hotter peppers due to the stress. Also use the shade rather than the direct sun, they dont need to be watered as much that way.
 
I'm going to attempt to overwinter in the ground this year. It's my first year growing, so I'm not sure how it will go. Smokemaster lives very near me and he often has plants survive the winter outside in his containers. I would assume plants in the ground will survive better than in containers. I live in an apartment that is about 15 minutes away from my garden, so bringing them in for the night isn't an option. It typically only drops below freezing for about an hour once or twice in the winter here.
 
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