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The heat of summer started to wind down in October, yet we had peppers, okra and tomatoes still producing. I desperately wanted to over winter the wide variety of peppers, especially so, since they were uber productive this year.
I contemplated on potting them up in containers and bringing them inside my portable green house, or garage, but decided against it, as the root system was well established and robust. Moreover, I wanted a bit more permanent framework, that I could use for dual purpose – shade cloth in summer and poly film in the winters. We get occassional freeze temperatures, although not consistent, they are enough to take down tender plants. Plus they are a bit unpredictable year over year.
Not wanting to spend a lot of time and money into my experiment, I settled with a PVC framework with U shaped metal clamps attached to the beds. The popular hoop structures did not make sense to me, as I still had productive tall okra’s and eggplants towering in the beds. So, my husband built a triangular structure over a rectangle frame 4 beds. With some basic drill tools, and hardware, it was a few hours job. This design in retrospect was not the best idea. More on this later. I purchased 6mil poly film from local ACE hardware store, and plastic clamps to attach to it from Amazon.com. They both are fairly sturdy, and has held up well over the winter winds and rain. We were severely short in covering the beds all the way to the ground, which I think was a bad idea.
Plants that I attempted to over winter and results
- Bed of orange cayenne and poblano chilli peppers
- Results: Hot habanero plants have shed their leaves, but stems still look healthy. I am hoping they will revive once the weather starts to warm up
- Orange cayenne peppers were affected by the frost. They were exposed, as the poly film did not reach the ground.
- Okra
- Results: Not worth the effort. They need a good amount of heat to thrive.
Analysis of the design
- The triangular top caved in a bit during rains and water pooled on the top.
- The design probably needs to be improvised to increase the angle so water just rolls off. Also we need to add additional cross supports to make it sturdy and not cave in during high winds
- The main reason why this did not quite work was because the plastic film was not large enough to cover the green house all the way to the floor! I assumed that 9b zones will not require as much protection as it never snows. I sure was proved wrong.
- Or if the above fails, I will try a hoop house model with curved dome
Signs of spring is here. I’ll improvise on the design, mostly by extending the film all the way to the ground. Stay tuned for an update!
