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Minimum temperatures for heat-loving veg
Emerion
Posts: 599
in Fruit & veg
Online advice for things like sweet peppers and aubergines suggests that below 15°C is bad and below 10°C is catastrophic. But in the UK, you can sometimes get lower temperatures overnight than that, even in August. So if that’s correct, we shouldn’t be able to grow these things outside of a heated greenhouse. I have always managed to grow plenty of peppers & aubergines in unheated conditions, so I’m wondering if this is another example of gardeners, even experts, just repeating what they’ve been told? I compromise by not exposing young plants to sub-15°C, and start to leave them out overnight in the polytunnel when they are bigger. But I would really like to know how low is too low for young plants, because I could leave them out sooner and more often - less effort, better light. Do you know of a reliable authority on this?
Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.
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Tomatoes/peppers/chili will sulk if temps get below about 12c at night, but of course this does happen even in the middle of summer as you say.
So it's prolonged periods below 12c that will cause them to sulk.
How you interpret 'prolonged' I'm not sure, but I've been growing them for 50ish years now without too many temperature related problems.
That said I've always been lucky enough to have access to a greenhouse
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I do the best I can to keep them at a temp they'll be happy with, but I can do no more, and I can't recall I've had temperature related problems in all those years
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.