Are vegetables annuals?

For the first time this summer I grew 2 pepper plants - in containers. This is my first venture into vegetables. Here in central Florida I garden year round and find that many annuals seem to be perennial. Both plants produced and are now looking rather worn. Are vegetables annuals? Is it time to compost their remains? Can I reuse the soil or should that, too, go into compost? It appears there is no disease or insect damage.

Hello CatladyDane, some veggies are annuals and some are perennials. Given your zone, you may have a hard time with cool season crops. ( Most veggies are separated into a further category of cool season and warm season crops.) Warm season crops are veggies that originated in tropical climates and are generally NOT frost tolerant. (Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, beans, corn etc.) Cool season crops originated in more temperate zones and can usually withstand some frost or even a light snow, but will stop producing when the weather gets too warm. ( Peas, radishes, spinach, asparagus etc.) There are exceptions is every category. There is also a small group of plants that are both cold tolerant and heat tolerant. ( Swiss Card, cabbage, brussell sprouts, broccoli, califlouer etc.) Your pepper plants although a warm season plant will continue to live as long as you don't have frost. They may stop producing until the warm weather returns, but should do fine once it does. The decision is, do you want to keep them if they won't produce again until next spring, or would you rather compost them and try a cool season crop that will give you food until it gets to hot again?

As far as annual or perennial goes; asparagus, rhubarb, jerusalem artichoke, brambles, onion family, some herbs and small berries should be considered . Most veggies would be annual because they either won't tolerate sustained freezing temps, or go strait to seed production the second year, producing very little crop. Carrots, parsnips, swiss chard, and potatoes are often left in the ground through the winter to be dug in the spring as they store quite well in place. However they should be removed and re planted the next spring as they won't provide additional crop, but rather will go strait to seed production and ruin what crop was stored for the winter. They get fiberous and pithy. Yuck.

I lived in Palm Beach County for years, and had hot pepper plants that overwintered well. athe former owner of the house had left them, and they were already pretty big (in 12" containers). They were the small fruited kind, and quit producing while it was cold, but came back in the spring. I don't recall doing much of anything for them, and I didn't use them much (they were REALLY hot).
You're in a little colder region, but if you could bring them into a protected area, they might well start again in the spring...

Thank you all. Maybe I'll just leave them in and see what happens in the spring. More than one plant has surprised me the following year when I thought it was lost.

What I've found in my 4 year's of gardening is that there are alway's "Volunteer's", seed's from past year's that assume the shape of the vegetable's I'm trying to grow, but never quite make it, if you like the pepper's, I would either reseed them, or start with fresh ones, just my observation but I would definately add some compost to the soil.

CatladyDane, if the containers are sitting on the soil, or if you put any garden soil in the containers your pepper plants might also be declining due to nematodes. They like peppers. Even though the plants aren't dead, they probably won't recover if they are infested. Nematodes are microscopic worms that invade the roots of the plants and block nutrient uptake. You can see if they have this problem by partially pulling up a few roots of one plant. If the roots are all knotty and look sort of like strings of irregular pearls that is root-knot nematode damage. Get rid of the plants!

I'd wait to replace the plants if you're going to, until the end of Feb. (last frost date, hopefully). Plant some cool-season veg like lettuce or peas, maybe? Needless to say, discard the soil and clean the containers thoroughly if there were nematodes.

The peppers may also just be declining because of the cooler nights. In which case they might come back and give you another crop in the spring. If you check and don't find nematode damage, I'd leave the plants in, give them a rest (cut back to minimal watering) and wait until about the end of Feb to give them a shot of fert and get them going again.

My pepper plants are in an Earth Box well up off the ground, but I've been covering them up whenever the nights get below 50.

Elaine

This message was edited Dec 29, 2011 4:57 PM

Peppers, tomatoes, lima beans, and plenty of others are tropical perennials, or are tender perennials. I grew a lima bean plant indoors for 7 years! I got plenty of beans from it, and even got some marvelous flowers.

You can take tomato cuttings and grow plants inside in winter!
http://www.tomatodirt.com/fall-tomato-cuttings.html

hey, I have a question - a smidge off topic, but it could be on-point:

I have three roma tomato plants in a bed. We had REALLY low temps (for south florida) for about a week, accompanied by high wind coming from the north.

I was REALLY sick last week, and wasn't able to get out to do anything.

I finally went out today to examine what damage had been done. thankfully, only two of the tomatoes had to be disposed off, but A LOT of branches had to be cut off. I actually thought all three plants were dead until I started clipping.

leaves were curled and blackened, stems (or suckers?) coming from main branch (vertical branch) of plant were yellowed.

After clipping, they remind me of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree - sticks with a few leaves up top, and a bunch of ornaments (in this case, tomatoes).

So, if there's another cold snap, what do I do?

my plants are 2-3 feet tall, with tomato cages. Do you put a 'row cover' on something that tall?

I don't have a bunch of extra sheets and such to cover everything.

thanks!

I'd try to cover them with anything I could. If it's windy then it can be hard. I've used tarps, sheets,fastened together newspaper etc. I just had a thought. I wonder if it would be possible to get some large cordboard boxes from stores. that would work. Maybes Lowes or Home Depot would have a few boxs that something like washing machines come in that you could have.

Another place to look for boxes, sheets, etc. would be Freecycle. (try this: http://my.freecycle.org/ or do a search) People often have large moving boxes and all kinds of useful stuff to give - free!

i tried freecycle - they turned me down. dunno why...

SoFla do you Have Tomato Cages Around them??? they should be enough to stave off the Cold, or you could buy some Defroster cable and wrap it around them on the ground, don't touch them put it around 6 inches from the base...and then just wrap the plant with whatever you have...Just a thought....

That sounds like it would work pappy. I will even try it soon.

KathyWid... Nice Post Thank You...I'll be trying that one...

Thank You Bloomfly, let me know how that works out... It should work...

Another trick for getting tender plants through a light frost: water them!

That's right, water them. Check a weather website such was weatherunderground.com to see what nighttime lows are expected for your zip code. Check it again shortly before sundown to make sure nothing has changed.

Then, right around sundown, water the plants. As always, water the SOIL, not the foliage. The water coming out of your tap is at around 60 degrees F, and depending on your home you may even be able to get warmer water than that from your hot water heater.

The point being, the plants go into their oxidation cycle at night, and they'll usually be happy to take up the warm water through their roots, and it takes Mother Nature a long time to bring that water down to freezing, especially if you follow up by covering the plants with old blankets, sheets, plastic sheeting, just anything that won't allow the cold air coming down to get through.

Obviously, how well this will work depends a lot on how dry or wet your climate is at that time of year. Here in Albuquerque, I've successfully used these techniques to keep tomatoes and peppers alive, and still producing, through to mid- or late November. Those first light frosts of October seldom amount to much, and then Indian Summer comes along and everything's pretty much the same as September.

But then, we live in a dry climate. Some place like Florida, east Texas, well then, maybe tomatoes and bell peppers can't take that much water in addition to the rain. But hot peppers are another story, usually rather hardier than sweet peppers, and anything that stresses the plant will give you hotter peppers-- not just the New Mexico sun, but also overwatering, battling through cold spells, etc.

With smaller pepper plants, such as most of the Serranos, you may be able to pot up your best specimens and keep them indoors through the winter. Even if you have to trim back the roots, they'll probably forgive you, especially if you give them some vitamin B1 formula transplant solution any time you transplant them.

Or you can take cuttings and pot them up. I'm not real good with getting cuttings to root by the usual recommendations such as putting them in sandy soil or potting soil, but with tomatoes and especially peppers, just putting the cutting in a glass of warm water and putting it in a sunny window usually works just fine.

Tomatoes and peppers are indeed tender perennials, and can be cultured to keep them alive for several years. I'm pretty sure these techniques would work for eggplant too.

well, if the weather will stay warm long enough (80 degrees today), I'm going to do a couple of e-buckets for hot/sweet peppers and a couple of tomatoes.

We sure don't recommend using any type of plastic to protect plants from frost unless you can 'tent' it so it doesn't touch the leaves at all. Any leaves that end up against the plastic will first get frost burnt then if the sun hits them before you remove the plastic they will cook. Any type of fabric that breathes a bit, or paper or cardboard is great.

I do water sparingly in the late afternoon before a cold night, and it seems to help the plants all right.

Good reminder about the plastic, Zyz. I hadn't thought of that.

I just started a new thread called "Annual, Perennial, Biennial: Botany Versus Common Usage" to explain, as succinctly as I could manage, the botanical meaning of these three words.

Somebody somewhere mentioned Nancy Bubel's "The New Seed Starter's Handbook," and I second that motion: single most valuable gardening book I've ever read.