Pepper seedlings - is mini greenhouse too cold for them?

Hi all

I potted on a load of pepper (chilli and sweet) seedlings today, plus a few tomato seedlings, into 3" pots. They have their second lot of true leaves just emerging. There's tons of em so I don't have space in the house, and have left them in an unheated mini greenhouse outside (you know the sort, with shelves and a plastic covering). I'm wondering now if it's too cold to leave them in there overnight.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Paddy

 

Dont think I would leave them there, we have a frost forecast for tonight.

 

"I'm wondering now if it's too cold to leave them in there overnight"

Definitely :(

A plastic "grow house", or for that matter a poly tunnel, will be hardly any warmer that outside - it will keep the wind off, and will heat up more, and be more humid, on a sunny day.

A glasshouse will be warmer, but still too cold.

An unheated conservatory, or a lean-to greenhouse against a brick wall, particularly an external house wall with heat "escaping" through it, will be warmer still.

In addition to being frost-free things like Toms, Cues, Peppers need a minimum of about 10C to carry on growing. Once they stop they really stop! and take a while to get going again.

I have a grow-house against the wall in my [cold] conservatory. That has kept a minimum of 10C for since about the 7th March. I have put a lightbulb in it for a few nights when it was particularly cold, but with the shorter nights now that isn't necessary.

They don't need any light, at night, so just putting them on the kitchen floor, or somesuch, and then out in the grow-house in the morning should do the trick.

 

"I'm hoping that was the last really cold night this spring."

Last frost in this part of East Anglia has been first week of April for the last 5 years ... but there is no sign, yet, of the first warm spell - looking back through temperature data we seem to get a week of good weather at some point, and thereafter the temperatures remain warmer

 

My peppers have taken up residence in the bathroom until the nights get warmer and all threat of frost has gone, far too cold at the moment to go outside!