A few months ago we were talking about ways to protect plants from cold. (I cannot find the discussion to link, sorry.)
All our chilli plants died outside where I am in the first winter BUT this year I have saved two I had growing from last summer!
This is inland New South Wales. We have frost and the temperature can get to a few degrees below freezing but always goes back up above in the daytime.
The cayenne was under a larger birds-eye bush in the garden and I wrapped both in a polyester fibre frost blanket which on warmer days I opened on the sunny side. Next to it I placed a large pot of soil as a bit of thermal mass and wind buffer. Although the birds-eye died it seemed to provide extra shelter for the littler one, the fruit on which also died before ripening. However, it now has buds again.
The other plant was in a pot, only germinated late in summer because I had got the seed as a souvenir from a restaurant in January. I took it inside to the sun room when the nights got cold, moved it about to keep it in sun as much as possible, on calm bright autumn and spring days put it outside to get more light and at night kept it in the shut-up loungeroom which was the warmest room in the house. Even there it went down to about 4 degrees C, supposedly way below tolerance for this species, but the plant lived nonetheless! When the nights stopped being cold I put it in the ground. It had flowered much earlier than the cayenne and has several large fruit ripening. That was a lot of attention and carrying around though. You woudn't want to do it with more than a couple of plants.
I loved the stories on this forum of the lemon trees in the USSR and Nevada. They show how much more may be possible than one thought. Our neighbours' aloe vera plants, in what they thought was a sunny alcove, died yet my one in the exposed front garden is just getting larger. Microclimate!
p_coyle, if you are reading, how are the plants doing in Arizona? At times I think that's where I am...
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branchandroot
report of chilli plants over winter
Date: 2024-11-30 06:24 am (UTC)Hello everyone.
A few months ago we were talking about ways to protect plants from cold. (I cannot find the discussion to link, sorry.)
All our chilli plants died outside where I am in the first winter BUT this year I have saved two I had growing from last summer!
This is inland New South Wales. We have frost and the temperature can get to a few degrees below freezing but always goes back up above in the daytime.
The cayenne was under a larger birds-eye bush in the garden and I wrapped both in a polyester fibre frost blanket which on warmer days I opened on the sunny side. Next to it I placed a large pot of soil as a bit of thermal mass and wind buffer.
Although the birds-eye died it seemed to provide extra shelter for the littler one, the fruit on which also died before ripening. However, it now has buds again.
The other plant was in a pot, only germinated late in summer because I had got the seed as a souvenir from a restaurant in January. I took it inside to the sun room when the nights got cold, moved it about to keep it in sun as much as possible, on calm bright autumn and spring days put it outside to get more light and at night kept it in the shut-up loungeroom which was the warmest room in the house. Even there it went down to about 4 degrees C, supposedly way below tolerance for this species, but the plant lived nonetheless! When the nights stopped being cold I put it in the ground. It had flowered much earlier than the cayenne and has several large fruit ripening. That was a lot of attention and carrying around though. You woudn't want to do it with more than a couple of plants.
I loved the stories on this forum of the lemon trees in the USSR and Nevada. They show how much more may be possible than one thought. Our neighbours' aloe vera plants, in what they thought was a sunny alcove, died yet my one in the exposed front garden is just getting larger. Microclimate!
iridescent scintillating elver