sharon: That's not a very grower friendly looking climate. Worse than here at 4500ft and we have spring freeze injury most years. Things in Duncan are going to be pushed into bloom by warm spring days and then get frozen at night. My suggestions for fruiting plants would be jujube, pomegranate, and possibly persimmon. You could grow stone fruit but without a shelter February to April freezes would get you most years If there is a grapefruit in Clifton (3500ft elev) it must be up on a hillside. Hillsides or terraces above the valley are the best spots in AZ. At night cold air drains to the low spots. Below is a comparison of Jerome AZ to Duncan. Jerome sets on a mountain at about 5200ft elev over in central AZ. Jerome is colder day and night all year long due to higher elevation. But check out the record lows. Jerome has a two month longer growing season because of it's superb air drainage Personally I'd get out of a drunken town in AZ ASAP. Or at least never drive at night. Rural NM and AZ have a bad drinking issue. Here is a link that might be useful: Ducan vs Jerome AZ climate

You would need to buy some bagged topsoil to pot your aquatic plants in. It is cheap at big box stores. Many tropical and hardy aquatic plants thrive in Phoenix, I had a ponding friend there who had a business selling off her extras as they grew so fast. You didn't say you were in Phoenix that is just where I used to live. You can grow plants from tubers at the Asian market. You can also get them from other ponders, a lot cheaper than retail. There is an exchange as part of this forum and there are others too if you google. Many allow plants to be sold but this one does not. Many aquatic plants are fast growing and small starts are fine. There are not so many that are suitable for a home gardener to grow for food production. Most are ornamental.

I would try your question in either the Arizona forum or the vegetable forum here on Gardenweb. I hope you find the answers you need.

I would expect your plants to put on maximum fruit set and stop growing. the peppers will ripen but no real further branch growth. Therefore no new flowers. I find this works well for me in pots. The fruit set early and I get nice red ripe pods by fall instead of a lot of green ones. But I never grew the Bhut. If you want big bushy plant then remove the flowers so the branches will grow bigger. But then it might get too hot for fruit set. If you have several plants then best to experiment. mark it all down so you have data to know what worked best. After the peppers ripen up nice and red the branches will start to grow again.