Northerner, I brought in my hot and sweet pepper plants (Bells, Anchos, Italian sweet, DArbol, Poblanos, Serranos) to overwinter, because I prefer not to sow them again if I don't have to-- indoors or out. I'd like to get fruit earlier on all of them next year. Peppers don't reseed for me.(Incidentally, I sowed all of these indoors last year...good thing, because it was an exceptionally cool summer) Tomatoes, on the other hand,reseed like the dickens around here. I usually pull up the volunteers now so I don't get any diseases. When I plant WSed Toms, I traditionally get fruit about two weeks after my SIL (who puts in store-bought plants). Once the weather gets warm, my plants have caught up to hers. And then, I'm getting fruit for at least two weeks after she's pulled her plants out of the ground. I am 3 miles from Lake Ontario, but I'm pretty sure other Zone 5ers that are not so close to a body of water WS Toms too. And if you saw anything on the Weather Channel about our storm last winter, you'll know this is not a warm place. Feb. is traditionally in the negative temps, often doubledigit-negative at night. Bottom line, you should do what you're comfortable with. But if you can spare one Tom seed or two, I suggest at least trying to WS them, to see what happens and compare. I won't waste room indoors on Toms anymore. I save it for the things that don't WS well for me. And some things, I've Spring or Summer Sowed, then overwintered indoors and it works really nice. I did this with Heliotrope, Bay Laurel, Gardenia, and Datura-- things that didn't or wouldn't WS well or at all here. This might also be a way to go for Peppers, although you'd have to plan a year in advance. Linda

I live in a igloo with polar bears lol way up in northern Manitoba Canada. I won't see spring until May. On record, this has been the coldest winter yet. Tempature has been -45 -50 for the last two months. Brrrrr! I stopped watering the peppers for a week and all the leaves pointed strait down and curled up. I watered them last night and by morning they perked back to life! Ill try out the pollination and keep you posted;) Greatly appreciated! Ghostjuice.

Hi Allen, I overwinter peppers in our oversized garage (we had to build it big so I'd have room for all my gardening "stuff"), so space isn't really an issue and I don't cut them back. When I move them into the garage, I line them up in front of the third garage door so that all I have to do is open up the garage door on sunny days and they get some sunlight. This means they don't go dormant and drop their leaves until either late Dec. or early Jan. Once dormancy has set in and the leaves drop, then I cut them back by 1/3 to 1/2. At this point, I'm not opening the door to get sunlight because (a) there's no leaves to use that sunlight for photosynthesis so it isn't necessary, and (b) it is too cold to expose them to outdoor temps. Generally, mine stay fully dormant all of Jan. and part of Feb. and then they start leafing out and blooming. (Sometimes they start that in Jan.) At that point, I try to get them either some natural sunlight every day, or I at least leave on the garage lights (they are those long fluorescent shop lights) all day so the plants have at least minimal light. I have them in a light, soil-less potting mix that drains very well, and I don't water them very often because they don't use a lot of water in winter. If you keep them too wet, they can die. In a good year, blooms set any time between mid-Jan. and mid-Mar. and I am harvesting the first early, small peppers in April or May. If you are keeping them indoors, if they have enough light and warmth, they won't even go dormant. I haven't tried moving them directly from the outdoors to indoors inside a heated house (our garage is not heated, but it is very well-insulated), but I think if I was doing it, I'd feel comfortable cutting them back back 1/3 to 1/2 even if the bottom of the plants don't have a lot of leaves. I consider overwintering peppers an experimental thing. All of them likely will not survive, but most will. In their native climate, they are perennials, so all we have to do is give them some protection from winter weather and we can keep them going for years here. My oldest peppers that I overwinter will be going into the garage for their third year in a few weeks. Before you bring them inside, spray them off really well with a garden hose to knock off any insects that might be hanging out on the foliage, and then watch them carefully for aphids or whiteflies or whatever. Once they're inside, there are no beneficial insects to control pest insects, so you have to stay on top of insect issues and remove them yourself if they show up. I don't usually have aphids or anything on my overwintered plants, but often just as soon as I move them outside for some sun on a warm winter day, aphids somehow find them. If I am patient, a week or two later, lady bugs show up to eat the aphids. How the aphids find the pepper plants in the winter is beyond me, and how the lady bugs pop up in late winter to eat the aphids escapes me too....but somehow it happens. Dawn

That's if you're going to get outside under NORMAL conditions, which is early spring. And early spring is just too cool for pepper germination in most parts of the country. But, right now, it's warm everywhere! You probably did right by germinating INDOORS, though. It's much easier to babysit. Most of us start ours in the middle of winter so that they're pretty mature when it gets warm enough outside to transplant. Don't stick directly in the sun... you need to harden off still by gradually introducing it to the outside, direct sun and wind. A little partial shade today, a little more tomorrow, a little direct sun the next and so on. Kevin