I pulled my Lemon Drops plants and hung them up in the basement today, in the sleet. I picked the first seven ripe pods a few days ago. Plus I'm trying bonchi with some Red Savina Habanero and some Jalapeno. There are still some sweet pepper plants out there, flowering. Nasty here in Chicago for trick or treating.

I don't think 37F would kill them but it will cause serious upset and stress.
I did pick some Lemon Drops and Habs yesterday along with ALL the mild ones. So really, you wont see any growth or ripening from now on. Pods will do better inside in your kitchen and even in the garage.

Seysonn

Ooops... it was only supposed to get down to 44 this morning. It's already 38 with another hour to go before sunrise. Glad I brought in my Bonchis last night!

Update: Well it bottomed out at 37 here. Nice prediction Johnny. ;-)

This post was edited by mecdave on Sat, Nov 1, 14 at 10:41

Talking about cold:

It has been one of the coldest night so far.
It seems that direction of cold is right into Texas.
This is the temps map at 10:15 am EDT.

It was 27 when I got up this morning... yep, everything is gone. The worst part, my tomato plants were covered in tomatoes, all green. We started to cover them, but they had gotten so huge we'd have needed at least 25 x 25 plastic, my 10 x 25 was definitely not big enough so, I crossed my fingers and hoped it would stay above 32... it didn't.
Pam

It's blowing 30+mph right now @ 55degrees. Going to find a/ setup my plankets later today. Going to be 34 tonight. Once this cold front blows through next week it'll be back to 65-75 a/ lows @ 45-60.

Johnny

We hit 36 this morning. After the sun came out it warmed up nicely. I erred on the safe side with my potted super hots. Those came in for the night. I had to leave for work before dawn so I was unsure how things would be when I got home. When I got home I see everything made it.

I already know not to hold my breath. Things can change here so fast it is no joke. by extended forecast the first frost is not estimated to happen till early December. Honestly I know that is just a slim hope. Our first frost will happen when the first major Northern front hits. Also a few of the lows projected are near to freezing. So container plants that can will come in. The rest will be gleaned before the frost, and then pulled.

I am now looking forward to cabbage for the winter. Mid March can not get here quick enough to suit me.

Plankets out; however, the plants grew taller than last year which made it all the more fun (ha) to get them covered. Eh, so what if it's redneck, just as long as it works! 34 tonite, boo. Tomorrow 63(day)34(night). Mon 68(day) 44 (nite). Hope they survive w/ this setup til I get home Mon afternoon.

:)

Johnny

That was an early cold snap in even North GA. I had been gardening in North Atlanta area for a number of years.

Back here in our neck of the woods is no pic nick either. Today, The 1st day of November : 51/44. No freeze, no frost.. But what good it is ? Nothing is growing or ripening anyway. So I announce the end of my season loud and clear, even way before the fat lady comes and sings...:-)

37 here last night. The big hab didn't even notice.

Dennis

it's getting down to 43 here tonight, 40 tomorrow.

for the first time this year I busted out the flannel pajama pants that my wife hates so much. which is oddly satisfying to me.

Nothing odd about flannel. I got to break out a flannel shirt today for the first time since last spring. Looking forward to the point it stays cool enough to switch to flannel sheets on the bed. I sleep better in flannel than any other time of the year. :-)

@ Judo and mecdave,

It does not matter what you guys put on, down south. It is gonna get cold (grin :-))

Tonight's the nite!

Alright alright alright.... None of us need to know you like flannel that much. You three need to get a room. (hahaha)

That joke being said, am sure my plants wish they had flannel pants on right about now. Hopefully the plankets did their job a/ everything made it. I'll find out Mon afternoon b/c I don't plan on taking them off til tomorrow afternoon.

Johnny

@ Chile -

Yeah.... that doesn't look friendly

Johnny

Woke up to 31 a/ frost the ground a/ tops of plankets. Unfortunately it caused the tips/tops to get frost burn. I'll have to snip them down. I just hope they can make it a little longer before they die. I have 18 plants full of green pods.

Johnny

I finally got a hard freeze saturday morning. took about a dozen potted ones in and hung about a dozen more. still have about another week of drying to get caught up. then i can start packaging seed. I have 150 four inch plastic bowls drying. By the time i get through with that it will be time to plug the heat mats in.

You're a pepper beast

Johnny

I guess it depends on how you look at it, my wife says i'm nuts. I admit, i get carried away and over-do things i enjoy. i still have 2 quarts of superhot powder from last year left.How much interet do you think there would be in powder? I could bag up a bunch of it for the swap, the older guy probally have tons of it. but the newbies might like it. let me know. John

@ Scorp -

Am nowhere near your level a/ my wife laughs at me w/ this.

Powder would an interesting addition. I'll take some either way.

Also, I sent you an email

Johnny

Polar Vortex blowing in next week. 30s - 50s all next week here.

Time to thin out the herd some more. Fortunately everything's about finished. Only a couple superhots dragging their feet. With luck it will warm back up somewhat the following week and they will get to ripen outdoors.

In the meantime, great weekend for outdoor chores to wrap up the season!

Here is a link that might be useful: Accuweather

I pulled 7 plants up to keep in my grow hut. Cut off any pod that wasn't green. The rest are on their own. Anything after all that is bonus.

Johnny

I have housed my Habs and couple of others in mini hoops.
I managed to find a few with some color. So I picked those.

I had tons of pods on my Bishops crowns that never get any color. Finally I picked all of them. So there goes BC onto my ZAP list. It was not for my microclimate. But Habs, Lemon drops, HHW, Thai Hot and few others did ok. They will be back next year.

FINALLY: Forecast shows a low of 28F this coming wednesday.November 11th. O ! Canada. hehe,, I am ready for it. Let it freeze ! Yesterday I cleaned up all my tomato beds as my fall clean up ritual.

> " my wife says i'm nuts. I admit, i get carried away and over-do things i enjoy."

There's a joke about sex in here somewhere if I can only find it...

Oh heck, you try.

Finally, our growing season is coming to end, officially, this coming Tuesday night . It will be a deep frost, 27F.

I need to bring in a couple of pepper plants to over winter.

It ain't over till the fat lady sings? The fat lady has raised her voice!

She started her song here last night. Tomorrow the high will be barely above 40 in the late afternoon. The good part is next week may be warmer.

Weather here is far from boring. Shorts and flip flops on turkey day. A parka on black Friday. Shorts, and flip flops on Saturday. Snow, and ice with a high of 20 one day. 75 and sunny the next. That is the norm here. The weather can be either very nice, or very horrid. The difference can most times come in the span of 30 minutes or less.

The opera has ended!

Yep. Slightly below freezing here last night, as reported by the sedums. Both peppers and most herbs are inside so no damage there...

Dennis

According to the experts and the weather data, this has been the coldest early November across the US. Here in the NorthWest , we have seen also very cold early November. For the last three nights the lows have been around 25F. This is more like late December and early January temperatures.

But then, as far as summer gardening is concerned, this cold spell did not matter, as our summer growing season ended in mid October anyway. Even then with temps in 45F-to- 57F range, clouds , rain, short days the summer crop (Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash ..) were just sitting there. So this cold did not change the picture in that respect.

Seysonn

Looks like we dodged a bullet out here in the hills. Tuesday afternoon I bunched up a dozen plants, stuck stakes slightly taller than the plants in each pot, then topped the stakes with solo cups. Finally covered all with a planket.

Temps were supposed to be in the high 20's each night, but as the sun set, clouds would roll in and keep temps right at freezing or slightly higher.

Uncovered them a short while ago and they all look the same as before (including no additional ripening unfortunately). Will cover them back up Sunday afternoon just before the next little cold front due in, then in a couple more days it's supposed to be really nice, so will hopefully get everything ripened for good.

Off to finish processing the 500+ pods picked last weekend...