was just thinking could i grow into winter if i had a heat mat and a cloche fleece ?? im in the uk

hi ,, the light hours in the uk are about 14 at the mo
plants are just about to flower in the outdoors
you can keep you plants away from the 1 frost
you have to work with the sun ,, and ie how much in witer ,, about 16 and up hours off sunlight ,, for veg

you could grow autos,you'd get a poor yield but as long as they got 7 hours of direct light it would work.

You could do it but you would ned to use lights in the green house, to extend the light time to the desirded length.

As an experiment I grew a SSH outside in a pot until sometime in December/January last year. I may as well have grown it inside under a 40w lightbulb. Because of the low angle of the sun you don't get the full 7 hours on the plants, I managed a couple of hours of weak sunshine a day on the good days.

I am contemplating a winter grow - it is frost free on my roof and shortest days are about 10 hours long. Sun is 13 degrees higher in the sky than in the UK. Temperatures can reach 70F in January. I would veg in my shed under a MH, then put the girls outdoors to induce flowering.

I wouldn't waste my money on seeds trying to grow outside in the UK in winter.. But its your decision at the end of the day.

well the seeds are free (shit load of indica dominant bagseed) so it wont be a loss if they dont do well. just a bit pissed off i started late this year so yield is gonna be a bit low. so i think im gonna try vegging for 3 weeks inside under cfls then plant out in 3 weeks , into a raised insulated bed with a cloche and fleece protection.

You should be able to grow outside for between 6 and 8 months of the year at least considering you location,
the rest of the time it shouldn't be too much of a problem to keep things alive with moderate temperatures and a bit of supplemental lighting.

the plant may die due to insufficient light, resulting in poorer yields. also frost will kill ur plant. i would try not to flower past end of october due it the risk being much higher of the plant dieing. if you do end up going past october, put the plant indoors for the remainder of flowering.

Read his location , he ain't in the UK, he is Spain you very rarely if ever at all get frosts and freezing temps in Spain. Also the supplemental lighting that I mentioned earlier, personally I would chuck them under a few 600w metal halides, they would survive the winter then.

I am on the Mediterranean coast, it is almost frost free here, as you say, and certainly is on my roof, where I grow. But inland it is certainly not frost free. And the Sierra Nevada (snowy mountains) has the most southerly ski resort in Europe.

What about a conservatory winter lowryder seed run?

would be heated so no frost.

Any chance of pulling this one off.

I think you could probably grow lowryders for seed in a heated conservatory, perhaps with a litttle supplemental lighting to ripen the seed if the light levels are really awful.

I have tried letting some plants flower into winter and they did have little airy buds but they all caught powdery mildew before they were worth harvesting. I would only do this again if I was desperate and I would install a decent out take fan next time or at the very least an oscillating fan, last winter I found the very high R/H was more of a problem to the plants than the cold weather, I cut them down late November but they had caught the mildew about the 15th and the plants were covered in 2 days. Although we had a really wet winter last year, if the mildew did not get them before xmas, the cold weather would have after xmas, so personally if I had plants that are just late flowering, I would worry more about mildew type fungi first and make sure I had good air circulation up until xmas, but if you are planning on growing/flowering over the whole winter period, then I would add a heater to the out take or oscillating fan and start using the heater as soon as the weather starts to get colder, just set the thermostat. Most importantly make sure your greenhouse/cloche is south facing to make the most of the sun light. But you must start asap because plants need at least 16 hours of light for a decent veg period before they go into flower, in fact this late on I would only try it with cuttings because it’s to late to start seeds without supplemental lighting for the veg period at least.

Good luck,
GG

we have 3 growing periods in the uk, spring, summer and autumn.