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overwintering Winter retreat

Skyjerk

Skyjerk

Some of you may recall that I built a small greenhouse to help my plants through some chilly nights.

Well, the chilly nights are now accompanied by much shorter time in direct sunlight (down to about 5 hours per day) so I moved my "keepers" into their winter retreat a week ago.
Two Caribbean Red's, and two Naga Morich. The habs are the closer two in the pics (in case its not obvious)

This small room has a pair of three foot, two bulb fluorescent fixtures
and then 9 CFL lamps. 3 each @ 2700k, 3500k, and 5500k.

There is a fan drawing fresh air and a humidifier and I have it fairly solidly balanced now at 84 F. and 75% humidity with constant air movement.

If the light isnt enough over time there is also a 400 HPS lamp which I do not currently have turned on because I wasnt to see how they fare without the added expense of running the lamp.

In the week they have been in there I have seen clear signs of new leaf and stem growth as well as new flower buds forming, and a bunch of the green pods that were already there have ripened.

I'm hopeful I can get through the winter nicely and start out the year with 4 big healthy 2nd year plants in addition to the new plants I will start in January.

Check it out:

Click the images to see larger versions

http://www.theskronk.com/wiki/index.php/Growroom
 
I wish I had sth like that! I'll try to overwinter some plants in the house in my garden, not sure how cold it'll get in there...

Good luck with your greenhouse, sth like that is sure great to have.
 
Very cool.

Aren't the big floros a tad high up though to be useful? I'd imagine there a lot of drop-off that high up.
 
QuadShotz said:
Very cool.

Aren't the big floros a tad high up though to be useful? I'd imagine there a lot of drop-off that high up.
Click to expand...

They are indeed. I actually built it last year and the plants were very small and I had a stand in there that raised them up significantly closer to the lights.

On my "To do" list still remains a few things.

I still intend to raise these plants about 2 feet higher than they are right now. The hanging lights can be easily raised, but the fluorescent
fixtures are a lot harder to move down.

I also intend to put some type of reflective wall covering and some reflectors for the CFL's
 
Chiliac said:
I wish I had sth like that! I'll try to overwinter some plants in the house in my garden, not sure how cold it'll get in there...

Good luck with your greenhouse, sth like that is sure great to have.
Click to expand...

Dude, what is "sth"? Does it represent "Stuff" or "Shit"?

I've seen you use that before but I figured it was a typo. Now its too consistent to be a typo :)

By the way, you appear to have a large orange balloon for a head. Thats awesome!!
 
Skyjerk said:
Dude, what is "sth"? Does it represent "Stuff" or "Shit"?

I've seen you use that before but I figured it was a typo. Now its too consistent to be a typo :)

By the way, you appear to have a large orange balloon for a head. Thats awesome!!
Click to expand...


Pretty sure it means something.
 
It means something indeed. Sorry, I thought it was a common abbreviation, didn't mean to cause any confusion.

It's indeed me and also a balloon, it's a part of a flyer I made for my music project.
 
Cool loking room you build my friend that is very nice you will have fun growing those true the winter, I keep few plants in the basement under lights too works fine & some I grow in hydroponics.
 
Skyjerk said:
Some of you may recall that I built a small greenhouse to help my plants through some chilly nights.

Well, the chilly nights are now accompanied by much shorter time in direct sunlight (down to about 5 hours per day) so I moved my "keepers" into their winter retreat a week ago.
Two Caribbean Red's, and two Naga Morich. The habs are the closer two in the pics (in case its not obvious)

This small room has a pair of three foot, two bulb fluorescent fixtures
and then 9 CFL lamps. 3 each @ 2700k, 3500k, and 5500k.

There is a fan drawing fresh air and a humidifier and I have it fairly solidly balanced now at 84 F. and 75% humidity with constant air movement.

If the light isnt enough over time there is also a 400 HPS lamp which I do not currently have turned on because I wasnt to see how they fare without the added expense of running the lamp.

In the week they have been in there I have seen clear signs of new leaf and stem growth as well as new flower buds forming, and a bunch of the green pods that were already there have ripened.

I'm hopeful I can get through the winter nicely and start out the year with 4 big healthy 2nd year plants in addition to the new plants I will start in January.

Check it out:

Click the images to see larger versions

http://www.theskronk.com/wiki/index.php/Growroom
Click to expand...
You are a lucky lucky man hahaha. Awesome grow room, I have to put that on my to do list. Probably won't happen for a year or two though.
 
OHHHHH! That's a room in your basement! I was thinking it was like a shed sitting in your yard, and I was going to ask you how you heated it. A room in the basement. Nice! Is there anything special you do to prevent the hated bugs from taking over? I went through a three year period growing some plants (mostly Caribbean Reds) in the basement under a growlight, but the bugs ruined everything. I tried spraying them but there were even bugs upstairs. The wife was pretty unhappy and you know the expression ... ? So, I dismantled the set-up. But, I am determined to give it another try.

So...short story, long, how do you keep the bugs from wrecking everything?


Fantastic looking plants, by the way. Those NAGAS! One day...

Thanks!
 
PrairieChilihead said:
So...short story, long, how do you keep the bugs from wrecking everything?
Click to expand...

Short answer: I dont know yet. I sprouted these plants in this grow room back in Jan, but they were still fairly small when I
moved em out. Bugs were not a problem then, and I'm hoping not a problem now
.
This house was only built 3 years ago and the basement is clean and dry and new. Maybe thats why theres no bugs...so far.

Fingers crossed!

Fantastic looking plants, by the way.
Click to expand...

Thanks! These are my very first (that survived my incompetance), actually. Tried my first round a year and a half back and I was so clueless I killed the crap out of those poor plants. 6 months of work produced a grand total of 2 mutant caribbean pods smaller than a dime and then they died. Those bad boys were surely the hottest Caribbean Red pods on earth though.
I made the fatal mistake of thinking "Its so small, how hot could it be?" and ate one whole.

Big mistake.

I learned a lot from my screw ups in the process though and so far I'm doing a hell of a lot better with round 2.

I'm psyched to get these through the winter and get them out in the spring as already mature second season plants and see how they do.

Canadian prairies eh? My wife lived on a acreage outside Edmonton, AB for years. I still hear about how cold it got in the winter. Plugging in the car at night, etc. I'm a Yank, but even so I spent 3 years in the mountains in BC. It got cold and DAMN but we got a lot of snow, but we didnt get the kind of low temps that you prairie dwellers get...

Do peppers grow well at -50 degrees?
 
Skyjerk said:
Canadian prairies eh? My wife lived on a acreage outside Edmonton, AB for years. I still hear about how cold it got in the winter. Plugging in the car at night, etc. I'm a Yank, but even so I spent 3 years in the mountains in BC. It got cold and DAMN but we got a lot of snow, but we didnt get the kind of low temps that you prairie dwellers get...

Do peppers grow well at -50 degrees?
Click to expand...

LOL!!!! Well, last year I left my plants in the garden as an experiment. I just wanted to see if any one of them might surprise me and survive the winter. But none did.

-50 degrees! We rarely get temperatures quite that bad, but we regularly get down into the -30's and those temperatures can last for a week or two before we have a bit of a let-up.

(Celsius...Farenheit...at those low temperatures they're pretty much the same thing, anyway.)

We do get a whole heap of snow. Often drifts in our front yard 3 feet or higher. Answer: No pepper will ever survive our winters...so a nice cozy corner inside the house is the way to go. What are your winters like?
 
PrairieChilihead said:
What are your winters like?
Click to expand...

Nothing like yours :-)

Temps are usually in the 20's and 30's but will get down into teens and single digits F. at times. Close but never below zero.
Occasionally we get a good snowfall, but usually just a few small storms that might provide 4-6 inches of snow.

I can still ride my motorcycle most days (with the right gear) and I manage to even make a few skydives as well but it does get considerably colder at altitude so thats not a regular thing in the winter. Of course its too cold for growing plants outdoors.

Winter here is lame. I actually wish it would get a bit colder and give us more snow.
 
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