Well for quite a while now my chilli plants that i am over wintering have been looking increasingly dead.After trimming them back in December, the plants have been looking so dormant i thought they were dead. First of all the stems took on a hallow look then the stems themselves started to turn black in colour which is never a good sign.
Despite appearing dead I have kept the plants inside and tried to keep them on a sunny windowsill as much as possible. Something that I haven’t perhaps done enough is move them away from the windowsill when the night time temperatures have been really low. As a result the cold drafts and low temperatures may have taken their toll on some of the plants.
However, I’m pleased to report that at the weekend one of the plants (an orange habanero) started to show signs of life. A couple of fresh shoots of growth have popped out of the dead looking stem.It just goes to show that you need to be patient when over wintering as it had crossed my mind to throw the plants away a couple of weeks ago.
It must be said that this plant had the least black looking stem of the plants so i suspect it may be the only plant to survive the winter. That said i’ve moved all of the plants to the sunniest window in the house and have even started to draw the curtains for them at night!
Time will tell if any other plants have made it through the winter. If not i’ll have at least one plant with a massive head start for the 2011 chilli growing season.
Have you over wintered any plants? We’d be interested to hear your success/failure stories. Just leave a comment below.