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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Peppers/Epsom Salts

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  • From: Richard Moyer <ramoyer AT gmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Peppers/Epsom Salts
  • Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:33:29 -0400

Alan asked:
aside from freezing, how cold of nights can sweet peppers tolerate
and keep producing?

As Ken noted, if you can get them through those first one to few
freezes, often there are several weeks of weather

We covered 4000 ft2 of bell pepper plants late last Oct. One med
weight layer of row cover or two thinner ones, depending on row. Kept
them covered until second week of Dec. Multiple times we reached
lower 20s. Harvested and sold sound peppers at market through Dec.
12. At some point, the young pepper fruit stopped maturing, but the
ones at or near full size (though green) held well and still looked
good. We picked the biggest ones first, and by mid Nov. the small
ones looked big, because they the only ones at market.

Leaves eventually froze where fabric touched them, but leaves and
peppers below were fine.

We already had a cover crop undersown (by accident, from supposedly
seed-free hay as mulch), but it came up under the row cover and gave
us a winter cover crop of grasses, clover and vetch.

So the row cover fabric can also help establish a very late sown cover crop.

Richard Moyer
SW VA




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