Well I plan to start mine in march. March for us the temps drop at night but the freezes are few and far in between though sometimes we can get a freeze even in april. I actually have always sowed in march and I have never considered it wsing. I also never have any problems either.

One good thing about this method and sowing in march in your wsown containers is that if a late freeze moves in you can always cap your container at night. At least that is my plan.

Though I am sure someone else has grown peppers this way.

Oh my... I have sown some already today, but didn't put them outside.. should I put them in the fridge until then?

To be honest I saw your other post. I didn't know how to answer it. I always start my annuals and veggies later on. I really don't know what to tell you now.

I cross my fingers for you that you are good to go and someone will come along and reassure you!!

I've WSed hot peppers many times--they reseed in the garden too. I have always had higher germination percentages wth hot peppers over sweet bell types, frying peppers are pretty much inbetween them. Maybe in aonther garden the reverse would be true, but in my garden it's hot peppers which have always WSed with success. They are annoyingly slow to germinate, it will be mid-spring, give or take a week or two. So, because you're in zone five, you will need to select peppers for short-season gardens. I think you'll have loads of green peppers, but I'm not sure if you will have enough weeks in summer to let them ripen on the plants.

I think you have a good question for a pepper forum. I don't think many pepperheads are WSers, but I imagine that someone from zone five might have experience with hot peppers reseeding in their garden. THat's what you want to know, because if hot peppers do succesfully reseed in your area--the plants are able to sprout, flower, and completely ripen its fruit--hen you can WS hot peppers with success and be able, if you want to, save their seeds.

T

On March 10, 2009 I WS'd the following peppers:
Choc & Golden Bell
Golden Baby Belle
Birds Eye Chili
Carnival Mix
Giant Marconi Peper
Anaheim Pepper
Chile Tabasco Greenleaf
Hot Lemon
Sweet Banana
Hungarian Wax
Costa Rican Sweet
California Wonder Pimiento

The sweet peppers don't seem to do much for me, but the hot peppers were great. Although the slugs got a couple of the varieties when the seedlings were still in the milk carton.

We had such a warm spring, I planted them out rather early and covered with a plastic bottle when there was a chance of frost. I hope this helps.

Bev

I would have never imagined it would work. Amazed it does, I will take a chance. It seems like that's part of the fun, looking forward to seeing what happens.

That's a marvelous list of peppers. Slurp.

I am in Zone 5 in Canada and hot pepper seeds do not make it through our winters. This subject has been discussed on the Pepper Forum and the concensus was that one cannot truly WS hot peppers. If you can get away with warm enough temps. in March, you may perhaps get a few peppers, but the plants thrive in really hot environments, and even though I start mine indoors in March, I do not always get a crop outdoors. This year all the peppers I harvested were after moving the plants indoors: Habanero, Scotch Bonnet, Tobago Seasoning. They overwinter indoors quite well and will produce an early crop next summer. The long red chillies, Jalapenos, and Hungarian Hot Wax are shorter season peppers and will give you a bumper crop. If left, they will all turn red. Let's know how you fare.

Definately will. Here's the list in the mix, others too not id'd...

NON AJI SPECIES OMNI-COLOR
CHINESE 5 COLOR
MIXED HABANEROS
MONKEY FACE
RED PAPER LANTERN HABANERO
PEACH HABALOKIA
AJI YELLOW
GOATWEED
AJI COLORADO
VARIOUS CAYENNES
VARIOUS UNKNOWN LG CHILES
JALAPENO
PURIRA
TRI-COLOR
BULGARIAN APPLE
CHILE CATARINA
CHERRY BOMB
VARIEGATED TRI-COLOR

this should be interesting... I did save some, we'll see what happens.

I am still dumfounded that for some hots do better than sweets winter sown.

Here is my chinese five color. Now I'm confused, it was definitely from seeds but, I don't remember if I started it indoors or WSed. Either way, it produced well and looked great.

{{gwi:454635}}

I'm not sure if this counts as winter sowing but I put all my pepper and tomato seeds out in their jugs the first -week in March. Seedling have been up and running when late frosts have hit. I didn't bring seedling in nor did I cap jugs. I am in zone 7-8a depending on which map one uses. I've had excellent pepper crops for the past 3 years now. Hope this helps.

Michelle

adamark - those are beautiful, and so robust! Thank you for sharing.

shelva - what peppers did you sow? I realize you are in a warmer climate than I, but them being outside like that with late frosts to me is astounding.

Just one more thing, even if I started this chinese pepper inside along with bunch of tomatoes and some cabbage, they were all exposed to some serious cold wheather. Since, as we know, indoored seedlings suppose to be hardened, instead of going up and down from my basement, I simply just put all of them in to the window wells. I think, there were there for a good month. I started seeds much too early, so most probably seedlings got to wells in Apr. and, I'm sure, there were nights with frost. However, most probably those wells served as green houses, to some extend. BTW, since I started tomatoes so early, they were very long and "leggy". I planted them with a "trench method". Of course, my DH was exteremly daubtful until he sow the results - but that's another story....

Wow, I'm impressed. I've never seen a pepper self-sow in any of the places I've lived, so I always start them indoors.

The part I can help with: don't worry about WS'ing affecting the heat of the pepper. While the plants are fruiting, the warmer and drier the growing conditions, the hotter the pepper, within the normal range of heat possible for that pepper. Since they're not going to bloom and fruit in the WS containers, the heat level, flavor, etc. will not be affected.

-Edie

Nice picture! I didn't realize vegetables can be quirky. I'm a flower person. I planted tomatoes plants in March and they didn't fruit any faster for it. Even with a Hot dry summer. They got really tall.

I'm doing the miniature's this year.

ladyrose - I had great success with cherries and a container style tomato (juliet). They were so prolific! I would snack on them as I was tending the garden. Will definately do the little ones this year.

I've started peppers - hot and sweet - both outside (Feb-Mar) and inside. In terms of germination, inside sprouts faster and I have larger plants when they are planted out. Outside germinates when the weather gets warmer, and the plants are smaller at plant-out time. But they soon catch up to the insiders.

In terms of productivity - no difference. I have better luck with the hots than the sweets - every year there's a bumper crop from my hot peppers (usually some sort of habanero, though I have grown lots of different kinds). Last year, I didn't even grow any hot peppers - there's a freezer FULL of them from past years. The sweet peppers are not quite so prolific - if I get a dozen from one plant, I consider myself lucky.

This year I'm planning on growing Bhut Jolokia, considered the hottest pepper in the world - supposedly 1,000,000+ on the Scoville scale. Chilehead that I am, that might be too hot even for me! But I'm curious .....

PV

PV - I don't dare try those this year, next year for sure. I guess there is one that may surpass the bhut. The naga viper is a cross of three, include the bhut. It can't be stabilized in terms of the seed being true, so ghost pepper it is.

My friend gave me a few alma paprika pepper seeds, I sowed them last week indoors. Noticed this morning little sprouts already. I'll be babysitting those this winter. I didn't have any luck with hots this year, so to see those there is hope.

Anyone in zone 5 or 4 winter sow any hots yet this month? After not having a single pepper sprout last year and planted them late (maybe April if I remember) I'm getting cold feet.

Last year I had bought those expandable peat pots with the mini greenhouse, don't know if it was the quality of the soil or my method. I want so much to not do any seedlings indoors......