Chillies - what are you growing/overwintering?

[Philthy]

It has been touched upon by yousefl, Scarlet and Small Pumpkin the chillies need a dormant period, I was not aware of this. I know this is essential in some plants (strawberries for example), along with chill hours in some cases. I might be mistaken by I am under the impression that chillies can grow for 12 months a year where conditions are more ideal, e.g. closer to the equator where there are less light/heat fluctuations throughout the year, and they grow as perennials. My thinking is that the leaf drop and dormancy is a survival technique, but not a necessary process needed for healthy growth in consecutive years. In this country most people have no choice due to the weather and light levels, they have to scrap plants off or allow them to go dormant.

Hi Tim,

I think you're quite correct with that assessment. For regions where temperature and light are more stable, I suppose the 'season' would be more influenced by rainfall amounts and availability of food, or put simply wet and dry. In ideal conditions in a natural setting, as you say the plant should just continue to grow, albeit at a much reduced rate to what we're used to, with the cycle of flowering and fruiting measured over years rather than months. And the plant's resting would therefore have to take place at night, in snatches of a few hours at a time, so I guess this minimalised recovery period would also influence the slow growth rate.

How this transfers to a growlight setup I'm not entirely sure (it's a technique I don't currently practice myself). I would guess that so long as you maintain a nutrient supply that goes hand in hand with the constant doses of 'sun' then theoretically the chilli plants would just continue growing. Whether and when they would flower and set any fruit under this process I wouldn't really know. But I don't think the flower set would be anything close to that of an overwintered plant grown naturally in line with our seasons of summer and winter that had been afforded a period of dormancy, as although it may have originated in climes hotter than ours, the chilli seems to have adapted to being overwintered in this way very well. A mature specimen in it's second or third year can produce a huge yield, sometimes two in a season.
I also think a properly rested plant would survive periods of drought, nutrient shortage, and cold spells far better than the non-rested plant (ie. if you moved it from the growlight setup back to a windowledge /greenhouse bench).
And then of course your plant selection must be considered as not all chillies come from hot parts of the world...

But it's fascinating stuff and I for one would be very interested in the experiment

[Scarlet]

Can you recommend a fungicide? I want to use one on my overwintering plants but don't know what's best.

Overwintering is hit and miss..they don't often survive. If any chilli plants are a little weak now it's not likely they will manage to get through ŵinter. Cut your losses now to try to curb the problem spreading.

[Scarlet]

I've just reread your previous post mitzi. Annums aren't generally worth overwintering. They often produce a super crop In their first year. So anything in that group it's probably wise to start again early next. ( less likely to get an aphid problem) Now the hab really is a great plant to overwinter. What problems have you got? As said before it not generally worth overwintering a plant with problems. Have you got any photos? If they have aphids personally I'd bin them now - others may disagree. A good wash and a day outside may work but if you post some photos we will have more info to go on.

[Scarlet]

I think that yes the more nodes left then the more spots the plant can sprout from, however even with a harsh prune to between 10-20cm I can see adequate sites for new leaves and branches to form on mine.

When overwintering ive found that the pruning cuts can often die back and will need fresh pruning again in the Spring. With pruning to 10-20cm theres nothing left to cut out if there's any problems and any new growth on overwintered plants can get heavily attacked by aphids. Though again my plants are usually left on a windowsill so very different to your setup.

[Mitzi]

I've just reread your previous post mitzi. Annums aren't generally worth overwintering. They often produce a super crop In their first year. So anything in that group it's probably wise to start again early next. ( less likely to get an aphid problem) Now the hab really is a great plant to overwinter. What problems have you got? As said before it not generally worth overwintering a plant with problems. Have you got any photos? If they have aphids personally I'd bin them now - others may disagree. A good wash and a day outside may work but if you post some photos we will have more info to go on.

I had a bad aphid problem in summer but I ordered ladybird larvae and they pretty much cleared them, then I released the adult ladybirds into the garden. But one plant has some white powdery stuff on the undersides of its leaves. I was going to remove the leaves and treat stem and roots / soil with fungicide and then give it a chance to survive. I know I should chuck it out but I'm really reluctant to do so, as it's been so good.

[Chris11]

I am under the impression that chillies can grow for 12 months a year where conditions are more ideal, e.g. closer to the equator where there are less light/heat fluctuations throughout the year, and they grow as perennials. My thinking is that the leaf drop and dormancy is a survival technique, but not a necessary process needed for healthy growth in consecutive years. In this country most people have no choice due to the weather and light levels, they have to scrap plants off or allow them to go dormant.

Tim is right, perennials will grow continuously in the right conditions. Growth will be slower if the conditions are not optimum, but some growth will continue as long as conditions are adequate, as Tim's set up is likely to be.

Growth will only stop if conditions are sufficiently bad to either kill the plant or trigger dormancy.

The process of seasonal dormancy is the perennial plant's adaptation to surviving the worst of the seasons. It is not 'necessary' and is only triggered when conditions mean the plant would otherwise not survive. The plant uses a lot of resources to go into a dormant state, and if it survives overwintering, uses those stored resources to break dormancy the following spring.

I've overwintered chilli plants in both dormant and non-dormant states. Some plants have gone into a slow growth state on a sunny winter windowsill without ever going dormant. These are the plants that have the best growth the following year, as they have not had to cope with the challenges of either going in to dormancy, or breaking out of it.

[Chris11]

...an unlabelled bushy thai-type one which I bought from Sainsbury's...it has been absolutely prolific all year with crop after crop, and the chillies are just the right heat level for me to use in regular cooking. I've saved seeds but I suspect it may be an F1 hybrid so they probably won't come true. If I cut off all the leaves and dunk it in some sort of fungicide (recommendations?) both now and in spring, do you think I can save it?

Don't know about fungicide, but just removing affected leaves might be enough to give it a chance.

If you particularly like the plant, I might be able to identify it for you. It's probably a 'Super Chilli F1'. I've seen the plants for sale in my local Sainsbury's.

It's a popular variety, and the seeds are widely available if you wanted to have a go at growing it. If you have the space, it might be fun to try growing alongside what will be your saved F2 seeds.

[Scarlet]

I've overwintered chilli plants in both dormant and non-dormant states. Some plants have gone into a slow growth state on a sunny winter windowsill without ever going dormant. These are the plants that have the best growth the following year, as they have not had to cope with the challenges of either going in to dormancy, or breaking out of it.

I don't have any grow lights. My plants are left on a sunny windowsil and they often carry on growing. Some of them are kept on my livingroom windowsil. Some carry on growing, I often have chillies still ripening over Christmas. Ive brought several plants in to ripen again this year. See the pic in the first post of this thread. The point I'm trying to make is why cut off all growth/flowers etc now to stick it under lights? Makes no sense to me? I know my lemon drop plant will produce pods slowly over Christmas without the need for cutting back and putting under lights.

[Chris11]

Scarlet, similar experience for me. I don't have grow lights either, and some plants have continued ripening pods and overwintered without going dormant.

As per previous post, perennials don't 'need' a 'rest', so if they're not going dormant of their own accord, I don't try and force it on them by pruning back to stumps. If they are dropping leaves and showing signs of cold damage, then of course I prune and hope they can overwinter in dormancy.

I think Tim gave a good explanation of his set up and reasons for pruning in posts #1880 and #1885. I personally don't have a grow light set up, but can see what he's trying to achieve.

[Scarlet]

but can see what he's trying to achieve.

I can't see the benefits and that's why I queried it. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the results.

[Small pumpkin]

According to the oracle that is Bob ( other half ) , who is starting to get a little too involved with my chillies ( talking, not a lot of doing ). He spends a lot of time on the chilli groups on f@cebook ( most the time I barely understand what they are all talking about on there ). So apparently there is a better over wintering survival rate and less disease if they are cut back hard! I've had no information / explanation as to why it's better ! Lights, some do, some don't .

[Scarlet]

I'm on a few of those chilli groups too

[Philthy]

I suppose the deciding factor on how to overwinter ones' plants, whether enabling a total shutdown or encouraging gradual growth through artificial means, could just be a matter of space available indoors, as I think we can all agree that unless you have very deep pockets keeping plants alive in a GH all winter isn't an option, and neither are windowledges long term anyway. I know with mine I try to keep as many alive into next year as I can - I usually start with 18-20 plants of differeing sizes, and will typically experience a loss rate of 25%. Whether that rate would increase or decrease if I didn't induce a dormancy period I don't know, but I would always need to prune them ahead of the transfer to indoors and the sappy green growth that would immediately follow would become a haven for the dreaded greenfly, unless the plant had already switched off for the year.

[JusPotterinTim]

I'm glad there is some thought provoking opinion regarding the overwintering.

For me the grow lights are a solution to have pods coming over winter, and the plants brighten up the house. My house faces east at the front and west at the rear so there would be minimal or no growth at all for many months if I relied on windowsills for light for the plants.

My 3-lamp setup cost about £115 with a set of spare bulbs, so if it lasts 5 years it will cost me £13 a month to run including electricity, for the 4 months a year I plan to use it, running the bulbs for 12 hours a day. If sounds expensive but it brings a bit of nature into my everyday life and helps lift the mood at a time of year when there's not much incentive for me to potter around in the garden and it's starting to look bleak outside.

Chris thanks for your input on dormancy.

Mitzi, regarding the use of fungicide, I am too tackling leaf spot on my cherry bomb. I have removed all the leaves and sprayed it with Compo Duaxo fungicide several times (got off the web, it's a systemic one). The other plants don't seem to have contracted the leaf spot luckily. However there's no guarantee you can control the leaf spot with fungicide and with the plant going dormant or pulling leaves off. If my cherry bomb flares up with leaf spot again when it puts out new leaves then it's going in the bin, very sadly, as it has been my most prolific plant this year.

[JusPotterinTim]

When overwintering ive found that the pruning cuts can often die back and will need fresh pruning again in the Spring. With pruning to 10-20cm theres nothing left to cut out if there's any problems and any new growth on overwintered plants can get heavily attacked by aphids. Though again my plants are usually left on a windowsill so very different to your setup.

Hi Scarlet,

Yes the 10-20cm works in my circumstances with the grow lights. Yes you're right there is often quite a bit of dieback with plants that go dormant so going a bit taller would be safer for those plants.

My solution for dealing with aphids was to rinse the plant heavily under the shower, then spray with a dilute washing up solution (non antibacterial), a good squirt per 500ml bottle of water, the type of squirt you'd use to wash the dishes, leave for 45 minutes, then rinse the plant. I repeated this twice again after 2-3 days to catch any hanger's on, and it cured aphids for me. Leaving the soapy solution on the leaves can burn them, hence the rinsing.