Wintering tomato and pepper

[xdrix]

This winter i try to wintering tomato and pepper.
I have reproduct a dry season for activate the sleeping vegetale.
This is the result after -5°C 23°F.

[imgrimmer]

I do wintering Sweet Peppers since 3 winters, half of them doing well, the other half dying.
I wait until after the first frost and only take plants that are doing well. Even among the seedlings from the grocery store are some hardy plants.
The tomatoes have always died after being potted. But maybe I dug them up too late.
I think frost is too much for tomatoes.

[jocelyn]

Yes, think you are right with the tomatoes. Most years I take cuttings before a frost and root them in the house. Some plants root and go for several years. Some root and die after a few months. I don't know what the difference is. Some seedlings have grown for 3 years before dying. I have a landrace going, based on open pollinated Defiant, Cherokee Purple and Mountain Magic....plus some I forget.
I do have some selfed Defiant seeds, and those ones will winter over in the house for several years and even bear tiny fruits. That's where I get the selfed seeds.

[walt]

My mother used to pot her Bell peppers and bring them inside just before first frost. They would go ahead and finish ripening fruit that had already set, but not set more fruit. So she'd keep the plants inside, where they were moderately attractive, until spring. After last frost of winter, she'd replant them in her garden. They would make another small but early crop of peppers in their second summer. Those year old plants would be looking poor by frost so they weren't taken inside again. But she'd also have new seedlings planted that year for late peppers. Those would go in the house for a winter. She repeated this for years.
I've grown chiltipines, wild, pea-sized, very hot but richly flavored peppers from Native Seeds Search. The first time I grew them, they bloomed at time for first frost. So I dug them and put them in 1 gallon pots in the house. They produced a crop. These were the first chiltipines I'd tasted, and my family and I loved them. They did fine for 5 years, in the same pots. They made attractive bonsai, and gave a crop of peppers every fall. They seemed to be daylength sensitive. I lost them due to letting them get frosted bad one year.
I tried crossing chiltipines with a "Thai Hot" which was very early bloomer and very small fruit. This was not like any other "Thai Hot" pepper I've seen since. I guess the name could apply to any hot pepper from Thailand. But my F1 hybrids chiltipine x Thai Hot were much like chiltipines, except they would bloom all summer. I kept the plants going for years in 1 gallon pots. I never saved seeds or grew an F2 generation. Why mess with perfection? But finally I did loose them, and I've never re-made the cross. Maybe this year?

[flowerbug]

Jan 5, 2020 7:24:13 GMT -5 jocelyn said:

Yes, think you are right with the tomatoes. Most years I take cuttings before a frost and root them in the house. Some plants root and go for several years. Some root and die after a few months. I don't know what the difference is. Some seedlings have grown for 3 years before dying. I have a landrace going, based on open pollinated Defiant, Cherokee Purple and Mountain Magic....plus some I forget.
I do have some selfed Defiant seeds, and those ones will winter over in the house for several years and even bear tiny fruits. That's where I get the selfed seeds.

for the ones that are dying relatively quickly i wonder if you are running up against the determinant trait that some varieties have?

[walt]

Flowerbug has a likely answer.

[xdrix]

The little tomato plant are interessant:
After the first cold -4°C he has close her cotyledon for protect the real leaf.
The variety are Torino.
When the night t° was not freezing i will put water.

[jocelyn]

Ah, sounds good. I think Flowerbug is right too....Defiant is semi detirminant, meaning it's listed as detirminant, but grows into a huge sprawling, open, bush. It lasts several years from slips. Mountain Magic does too. Indigo Rose does, several years, but they don't tste all that great:(

[xdrix]

Finally the last tomato is died in march.
The pepper is alive. I will post a photo later.
This winter he have don't freezing above -5°C 23°F at the thermometer of the greenhouse.

[xdrix]

He has make root on the rod.