I've got a couple oddball varieties that I'm considering overwintering. I was planning on waiting to see how much I liked some of these before throwing them into a bucket / pot but I'm running low on the potting soil funds. Has anyone taken a plant that was outside in the garden and transferred it to a container to be overwintered? If so, have you had success? My first attempt at overwintering failed miserably but I have learned from my mistakes (hopefully).
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container To containerize or not to containerize?
- Thread starter RedtailForester
- Start date
Might be a dumb question, but does a plant have to be a full mature adult before over-wintering is attempted. Reason I ask is I'm thinking about ordering some live plants from chileplants.com. I've tried to contact them to see how mature the plants are but have gotten no response yet. I would hate to spend money on 12 plants (since that is their minimum order) to have little babies come and not even be able to produce fruit this season, although being in Alabama it does stay above 50F at night well into Sept. so I dunno.
I think it's very common to pull plants from the garden and overwinter them. I tried it this past year along with chopping the plants down to stumps and cutting the roots way back. I lost all but one plant, but I think that is because they didn't get enough light and I left them "dormant" too long. A friend of mine brought in a bunch of plants without cutting them back and lost all of them to pests. I'm going to try the stump method again this year, but this time I'll give them some light and food earlier.
Here is a link to my photobucket account. I just got plants from CCN last week and they were 4"-8" tall depending on the variety.
guess it depends on how you view overwintering. if you believe putting the plants into a container in a cool, low light environment with minimumal water(effectively putting the plant into a hibernation state) or if you believe in bringing the plants into the house and putting them on a window ledge allowing the plant to grow all winter.
i do both, i like to let young plants continue to grow on a sunny window ledge and my mature plants to stay quiet. i get mixed results, just had a 3 year old goatsweed up and die a few weeks ago, it was in a tote with 2 other goatsweed plants that are 5 years old. all three plants woke up and started new foliage, then out of nowhere the 3 yr leaves started to wilt and the plant died. i have 5 hot lemon plants that were in the window all have pods on them now.
good luck and keep experimenting.
I think I must have done the same thing that Musky did. I did not cut the roots back on the plants I tried.
I guess experimenting is the fun part.
I guess experimenting is the fun part.
I've learned my lesson to never overwinter plants. Stupid aphids just wont die. I'll just grow new ones from seeds from last year 
i'm with contour on this one. i overwintered 15 5 foot tall chinenses in my room and slept on the couch all winter. everyone warned me about the aphids but i didn't listen. it was like a GD horror film. for every aphid i killed 1000 more popped up. i didn't trim the plants back far enough and i believe most of them didn't go dormant fully. i almost lost my red 7pod. the aphids jumped off the overwintereds to the first batch of seedlings and demolished them. although i've been eating red7s and choc bhuts for a month now i won't overwinter like that again.
Ya i'd keep the overwintered stuff far far away from your 2012 seedlings, i may be paranoid but there's too much pest and disease risk imho.
I ripped them out of the ground in 2010, cuts roots and left 8 inch stalks. I soaped and Neem oiled them, then placed them in 18oz solo cups for the winter. I used fresh+sterilized potting soil, and introduced some beneficials a little while later. Some survived, some didn't, but i neglected them quite a bit.
For 2011/2012 i'm going to overwinter a few different rocoto/manzano varieties. I want them to turn into trees in 2012, that's if i don't baby them to death first...
I ripped them out of the ground in 2010, cuts roots and left 8 inch stalks. I soaped and Neem oiled them, then placed them in 18oz solo cups for the winter. I used fresh+sterilized potting soil, and introduced some beneficials a little while later. Some survived, some didn't, but i neglected them quite a bit.
For 2011/2012 i'm going to overwinter a few different rocoto/manzano varieties. I want them to turn into trees in 2012, that's if i don't baby them to death first...
millworkman
eXtreme
I second that. I had soooo many issues this year with fungus gnats. What they didn't kill the hail did.
Ok, so I went ahead and ordered some plants from CCN ( 7 Pot, Bhut Yellow, Bhut Chocolate, Red Savina, Naga Morich, Trinidad Scorpion) I split the order with a co-worker of mine who I've spread the pepper growing disease to so it was only like 25$ for each of us. I figure if I fail miserably at least it was only 25$. I've got some run-of-the-mill peppers picked up from lowe's that are doing great ATM. Just Jalapeno's, Cayenne's, Habs, and a couple others, and I've just used a mixture of MG moisture control and MG potting mix on them. I know the general opinion of MG products but its the best I can do here locally without paying an arm and a leg for shipping a 3.8CF bale of Promix BX. Anyways, rambling now, my question is this: I know the plants from CCN come in smaller square pots, would it be ok to move them directly into 1 gallon nursery contatiners? I've heard differing opinions on moving them to smaller 6" containers then to 1 gallon then to 5 gallons. That just seems like a ton of moving around. I will put them in 5 gallons after they get some growth on them (just so happens this co-worker had a chicken farm so has a ga zillion 5 gallon buckets laying around...score). I don't want to put the plants in the ground because me and the wife are looking at new houses so I dont want to go through that trouble of ground planting them, then having to dig them right back up. Anyways, back to the original question. Is 1 gallon nursery containers too big to move them straight into? Thanks for all the help.
We overwintered 3 plants, took them out of the garden, cut tops and roots quite drastically. Planted the peppers in a clean pot, new soil( helps keep any soil borne bugs away. They not only survived with no aphids but the bhut has flowers on it now. IF it ever stops raining they will get hardened off to go out to the garden.
Downriver
eXtreme
Well Dan, looks like your thread has been massively jacked my friend 
. So, in an attempt to reign it back in, you originally said:
Yes, I dug up the first Bhut I ever grew (awesome plant). I chopped and hacked and plucked the heck out of it, then stuck it in a one gallon. Even with all that abuse, it stuck its' tongue out and said "is that all you got?"
. It was recovering nicely and then, all a sudden, BANG - aphid assault and domination, which lead to an ugly death.
The following year I overwintered three manzanos. I did a few things different, but the aphids eventually showed up. I was able to control them this time (ladybugs), and the plants made it through to the following year. But, even in their second year, they didn't mature fruit before frost, so I bagged 'em.
This year I'm dabbling with a few wilds, which I'm thinking about trying to overwinter. Not sure yet, but I ain't skeerd to try.
I think overwintering can be done successfully, but it does have its' challenges. Because of that, I won't bother overwintering common, easy to grow, short DTM type peppers. I'll reserve it for rare, HTF type plants. But, that's just me.
Good luck wid it.
. So, in an attempt to reign it back in, you originally said:Yes, I dug up the first Bhut I ever grew (awesome plant). I chopped and hacked and plucked the heck out of it, then stuck it in a one gallon. Even with all that abuse, it stuck its' tongue out and said "is that all you got?"
. It was recovering nicely and then, all a sudden, BANG - aphid assault and domination, which lead to an ugly death.The following year I overwintered three manzanos. I did a few things different, but the aphids eventually showed up. I was able to control them this time (ladybugs), and the plants made it through to the following year. But, even in their second year, they didn't mature fruit before frost, so I bagged 'em.
This year I'm dabbling with a few wilds, which I'm thinking about trying to overwinter. Not sure yet, but I ain't skeerd to try.
I think overwintering can be done successfully, but it does have its' challenges. Because of that, I won't bother overwintering common, easy to grow, short DTM type peppers. I'll reserve it for rare, HTF type plants. But, that's just me.
Good luck wid it.
I yanked some plants out of the garden and overwintered some common C Annuums. I doubt I will again. I did learn a lot about the process by making lots of mistakes. Non-sterile soil led to pestilence on a biblical scale. Pests happily graduated to seedlings in the same room. Being in a window woke up the foliage and increased the horror. Most things survived, but it was a battle.
I'll try again with a few if I get some really stellar plants. They will have to survive long time in the garage with minimal heat and light. Might try a "bonchi" / bonsai plant or two inside the house. Little puppies like that might be easier to manage....
I'll try again with a few if I get some really stellar plants. They will have to survive long time in the garage with minimal heat and light. Might try a "bonchi" / bonsai plant or two inside the house. Little puppies like that might be easier to manage....
No sweat to all you thread jackers 
At the moment, I've got a 'Rain Forest', 'CAP 333', 'Sonoran chiltepin', and 'Ecuadorian Red Pepper from Hell' that may just need to go into the garden. With my damned flea beetle issue, I'm hesitant to put more oddballs out.
At the moment, I've got a 'Rain Forest', 'CAP 333', 'Sonoran chiltepin', and 'Ecuadorian Red Pepper from Hell' that may just need to go into the garden. With my damned flea beetle issue, I'm hesitant to put more oddballs out.
Hey Dan what kind of ferts do you prefer when growing chilies in pots??
Ummmmm. . . that is a tough one. When the plants are small and have not started producing buds / flowers / fruit, I tend to use a fertilizer with a higher nitrogen level in it to promote leaf expansion and vegetative growth. When buds start appearing, I normally lend more heavily on fish emulsions and such. That being said, I haven't come up with a favorite fertilizer yet. I try to manage nutrients carefully and not overdo it.
I've decided to keep the Sonoran chiltepin in a container in hopes of successfully overwintering this year.
