Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

report of chilli plants over winter

[kallianeira]

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!

p_coyle, if you are reading, how are the plants doing in Arizona? At times I think that's where I am...

iridescent scintillating elver

Re: report of chilli plants over winter

[p_coyle]

i had to move into an apartment a few months ago, so the garden has been downsized to some pots on my patio. however, everything is doing well, by far my best attempt at a carolina reaper, several other peppers, a couple tomato plants and a meyer lemon tree. i think there may be a community garden nearby i just found out about today, so making a visit is on the agenda for tomorrow.

i had good luck with putting a bunch of tall, skinny glass encased candles (think tall votives with some space at the top, often with the picture of a saint) around the plants, underneath the frost blanket. the flames never got big enough to catch the blanket on fire and the blanket keeps the heat in to some degree. the candles will last multiple winters, depending on how often you have to use them. this was mostly for citrus trees, so ymmv if using on smaller plants...

Re: report of chilli plants over winter

[kallianeira]

The candles sound wonderful! They would look so good on a balcony! If my neighbours had those I'd be tracking them down to find out what they were doing and copy it. :)

Do they extinguish themselves when the air in the glass runs out? - I have not used that kind.

Carolina reapers were one of the casualties of 2023. I never got any more, sadly.

iridescent scintillating elver