Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com to give you another exciting episode for you,
I’m here in my front yard garden and it is now December time and finally I’m just
pulling out my peppers and cucumbers… well, what’s left of the cucumbers.
I’ve already started pulling out the tomatoes since they have not already been productive,
but what I thought I’d share with you guys in this episode is the number one pepper plant
you guys want to dig up and actually overwinter, in a greenhouse or indoors, that will produce
even throughout the winter time.
In my climate here I could just put it in an unheated greenhouse and it would still
thrive and make a brilliant amount of peppers for me to eat.
Now they are quite hot but there’s still some pepers that are going to really do well
in the winter.
Anyway, let’s go head in for a quick mini tour just on our way for the peppers and I’ll
show you guys the special pepper plant that I’m digging up.
So here, even in December check it out, like this is the Bolivian cucumbers and this guy
is still viding out, still producing tons flowers and even little fruits around here,
if I look I could find a fruit.
Here is one, here is a whole bunch, still making these amazing fruits.
And I still do have some seeds left so you’re looking at the probably most hearty cucumber
even though it’s been dipping down in like mid thirties, hasn’t gotten to freezing
yet even, maybe it’s the upcoming week, once it freezes these guys for a toast, but
even in a little high thirties, mid thirties, this guy is still producing these little mini
cucumbers.
Really good, especially in December.
Go ahead and head on in.
Those cucumbers can get really rambunctious here, as you guys can see I got all these
vines that are growing like wild and even more cucumbers.
But yeah, these guys are still thriving whereas my other cucumbers over here are finished
for the season.
So let’s head in and over this fruits bed, this over here used to be peppers right here,
as you guys can see it’s turning to dirt, I leveled it out and I’m getting all ready
to plant new fall and winter crops in there.
This next bed basically was peppers on the side and cucumbers at the middle and the cucumbers
are pretty much finished, and then this other bed here, this was another bed of peppers
that I harvested already and we got it replanted into lettuce and garlic.
Here’s some other random… family plants and purple cauliflower.
Anyways, this is what I really wanted to show you guys.
Over here, my next peper bed over here, in this bed I planted some special pepers.
Check it out, here is one of my cucumbers that are left, they are kind of getting messed
up now, they are still edible, I’ve been juicing these guys.
But yeah I mean, nothing like the Bolivian cucumbers still producing when these guys
are just like you can see the vine toasted out.
So I really like how in nature different plants finish at different times, so once it starts
getting cold pretty much my… artichoke, they got to be cut down, they don’t really
like the cold, my cucumbers are next, then the tomatoes are next and then finally the
pepers.
And some pepers fair better than others and that’s what I’m going to show you guys.
Check it out like these pepers, these are maybe long Italians, they are still hanging
on even though we’re in mid thirties in the evenings, days right now in the sixties.
You know, nice long Italian peper.
But these guys, once it gets pretty cold they are not going to make it and I do not recommend
growing large pepers if you’re overwintering them, in the winter they need a lot of sun
and whatnot and nice weather to produce nice large pepers like this.
Likely this is for mostly when it’s warmer and not just finally wrapping it up.
Now if you do want to grow the pepers over winter then I would recommend maybe like a
Serrano peper or even smaller pepers in that but I have a special variety that I want to
introduce you guys that I have had videos on in the past.
So now I want to show you guys the pepper plant that I will be saving and overwintering
in my unheated greenhouse in my zone nine, so it’s this guy right here, this is known
as the Monsanto peper, also known as rocoto peper.
They come in a few different colors, they come in yellow, red and orange and they are
really nice pepers, even despite the mid thirties we’ve been into.
Now, doesn’t like the frost, maybe if it gets down to thirty two for an hour or two
it would probably be alright, because this peper plant is from south America in the altitudes
where it’s used to actually staying cold for a long period of time and that’s what
really does well.
In the desert garden where there is a hundred degrees plus these plants do not like it,
they like it cooler so if you live in like the coast of Oregon or someplace where it’s
kind of cooler, especially in the evenings because pepers generally like it hot in the
evenings, this is the baby for you that is going to produce some nice fairly hot pepers
actually.
If I remember, I’m going to put a link down below to the video where actually I tasted
these pepers that are overwintered in my garden, I think I had a right pepers in maybe like
January which is really cool and I try a peper for the first time in camera and man, that
thing lit up my mouth, it’s actually a quite funny episode just to think about and then
actually even to watch.
But yeah, these guys even despite the mid thirties it’s still flowering so you guys
can see some of that beautiful purple flowers right there, and I mean it still has lots
of flowers, this is when it flowers, when the nights are cooler, it doesn’t make fruits
for most of the summer until it starts to cool down in the evenings and the days are
cooler also.
In addition, we got some fruits that are ready despite it’s still going in the flowers,
wanting to produce more fruit we got some nice fruits here and we’re going to show
you guys some of the nice bell pepper shaped fruits right there on the screen.
Now these are unripe fruit. Now you can harvest your peppers green...
I always encourage you guys to harvest your pepers at full color, at full rightness.
Once again it gives you red, orange or yellow, I’m not sure which variety this is because I didn’t
didnt label it.
So what I’m going to do now is actually just to dig up all the non Manzano peppers
in this bed and then have room to dig these guys up and put them into a nice five gallon
or even larger sized pots and then we’re going to go ahead and pull them in the greenhouse
for the winter.
So I’m going to get doing that, we’ll come back at you when I got them all potted
up.
Alright, so as you guys can see I got a bed cleared out here and what I’m going to do
now is actually potting up my Monsanto peppers in about five gallon pots, the bigger the
pot size the better, this is all like kind of hanging around.
I think I got kind of like one spare of fifteen gallon that are pot of this special plan that
I’m into, but they are going into this size.
So for overwintering there is two main reasons why you might want to do it, and number one
reason is just to keep the plants alive over the winter, and maybe not have it produce
fruits for you so that next season you can actually plant alive roots that’s already
a nice big mass in the garden and have it sprout up and you’ll get peppers sooner
rather than later the next season.
I’m doing it a bit differently, I’m going to let it just continue to grow and continue
to make peppers for me in my greenhouse.
If you’re doing the former, you may want to turn the plant back massively to minimize
the amount of growth on there because moving a plant out of a raised bed works nice and
happy into a five gallon pot, definitely going to be some transplant shock.
I’ll show you guys how to minimize the transplant shock by trying to dig up the biggest root
up possible and I’ll show you guys my specific technique to do it over the next one I’m
digging up.
Now I’m ready to pot this Monsanto Pepper into one of the five gallon pots, so here’s
a few tips for you.
Number one, you want to have two pots ready, you’re probably thinking John this is only
going into one pot, why do you need two pots?
You’re right, so you want one pot that is probably filled with a good potting soil mixer
and it’s going to drain well, not going to retain much water, peppers don’t like
it too wet, actually up to the soil level where you think you’re going to pull out the
big root ball the root ball is probably going to go down almost halfway into this and then
I’ll set it on top of some new potting soil so that new roots can grow down into, so that’s
what you want to have available, this is the donor pot and then of course you want to have
a secondary pot with just potting soil because I want you to pull out the rool ball it is not going
to fit the other pot completely, so we’re going to take some of the stuff out of here
and just fill it in around the edges.
So to do this since I’m using smaller pots, I’m not going to use a full size shovel,
plus it’s just going to get really big and awkward to deal with unless you’re transplanting
into a fifteen gallon or larger size pot.
I got this handy dandy shovel, it’s a Craftsman but like a mini shovel, I find this perfect
for doing transplants and doing a lot of things around the garden.
I think I got it on sale for like five or ten bucks, definitely a really good investment.
So we’re going to come around the base of the plant and I kind of like to take this
circumference of the pot and kind of basically carve out with my shovel you know, just a
circle around the plant about the same size.
You want to make this as wide as possible because you want to get the most root ball
as possible in the pot, this is going to ensure the plant has the least amount of transplant
shock, the less roots you can actually cut off and damage, the higher probability of
success you’re going to have.
So we’re going to go ahead and pull this ripple and go back and maybe go ahead and
dig in here, and ease my foot here and shove that in the ground and straight down and wiggle
it back and forth, pull the ground down, come up and then we make our circle going around.
Wiggle back and forth, hold the ground, pull it up… this is not rocket science, anybody
could do it.
Worst thing that could happen if you don’t do it right and then you’ll learn how to
do it better is the plant won’t make it, no big deal.
That’s why I’m doing eleven of these, I’m sure a good percentage will make it.
Alright, put it down… alright, we’re halfway of our full circle here, alright coming up,
I think we have one more to complete our circle approximately.
So now you guys want to take up your shovel and put it down there, put it down as deep
as you can, even deeper than it was before, rock it down and then we’re going to get
our transplant pot ready.
And then we’re basically going to pivot this up you know, use leverage, I learned
about that in grade school.
Alright, leverage it up and once we got this big thing out, I kind of hold it on the shovel
and then I kind of carefully make sure it has the appropriate height for all the soil
in there and then kind of maybe scoot this back and then I very carefully place it with
the shovel into the pot and don’t remove the shovel yet, what we’re going to do is
we’re going to use the secondary pot of soil, grab a handful of soil and we’re going
to fill around the edges.
And we’re going to push the soil around the edges and use to fill up all the nooks
and crannies, and also that’s why you don’t remove the shovel yet because what we’re
going to do is I’m going to take the soil and put it behind the shovel because if I
just let the shovel go then all the soil is going to fill the pot, so we’re going to
go ahead and fill this up.
Alright so now we got the soil in and we’re going to go ahead and remove the shovel, then
I like to give the pot shakedown , shake it down.
This is to basically set all the soil into the pot.
The other thing you want to remember when transplanting in most cases, not all, is you
want to keep the level soil that was the original plant at the same level, so like if the plant
comes up to here, don’t overspill it to here.
In the case of peppers I could do it, with the tomatoes you could do that, but I like
to keep them at the same level.
Some plants are sensitive and even if you fill them a little too high, then you’re
going to get a stammer on.
So we’re going to go ahead and put this in, shake it down and then I like to push
in around the edges before I fill in.
And I always like to leave a little bit of gap between the ledge or the edge of the pot
and the soil level, because if you fill it with the soil too high and then water it,
it’s going to overflow, so I like to give it a good inch.
But not too much, because if you leave too much space you’re missing out on soil you
could have where the roots could be growing.
Alright, so I think this guy is done, I’ve got about another nine to go and I might come
back at you when I’m finished.
So as you guys can see, got all eleven of these guys potted up, actually finished the
last up when it was getting dark so I thought I’d finish this video for you guys today.
I potted these guys up, after I got them into pots I watered them, that’s very important,
I watered them after I put them into pots and the next morning you’ll notice some
of the leaves are kind of droopy on these guys, some are more droopy than others, some
are actually not really affected, but this is normal after transplant, the plant has
literally been picked up and moved.
If you picked up all your stuff and moved in one night, you’d be a bit fragile too,
right?
So don’t worry if your plants look like this, hopefully some will come back and some
of them may not, and if they don’t come back that’s alright because you know what?
I’ve got extras.
And I always want you guys to plant insurance, you know?
Plant two or three of the same kind of plant just to make sure that you will be able to
keep those genetics.
If you’re transplanting, transplant a couple, transplant an extra one just in case, you
can always have too much than too few, that’s a lesson I learned with having a brother.
So if you guys enjoyed this episode, learning about what pepper plant I’m overwintering
and why, please make sure you give a thumbs up, also make sure to share this with somebody
that is trying to overwinter their peppers.
This is the one that I like the best for cool weather, also this is good for people that
grow in cool weather and want some hot peppers that don’t generally produce if it’s not
hot enough out.
Also be sure to check my past episodes, my past episodes are about 12 now on this YouTube
channel.
Be sure to hit that subscribe button down below to know about my new upcoming video
that is coming up in three to four days, you never know when I’ll show up, what you’ll
be learning on my YouTube channel.
So once again my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, we’ll see you next
time.
Until then remember, keep on growing.