Thank you for the info. I hope that we can pull this off. Is there any downfall to keeping plants in the greenhouse over the winter? Is it better for certain plants to go dormant or to go through a winter? I was planning to let me everbearing strawberries to go dormant, and to leave my lemon balm out for the winter, but if I can fit them in the (what will be very small) greenhouse, then maybe they can just stay nice??? I am in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn, currently.

If you want mild, then avoid that fish pepper. That's a hoax, as the fish peppers are a whopping 450,000 Scoville units! I do alot with hot peppers; (hence my garden's name "Pica Villa"). I currently am growing several varieties, ranging from 500 to 1500 Scoville units. I like them all. They are: Poblano L (bell pepper shaped mild stuffers - bought the seeds from Tomato Grower's Supply), Peruvian Amarillo Aji (bush type) - seed from Remier Seeds, Peruvian Amarillo Aji (large fruited - ripens dark orange (rich, and mild if deseeded)) - my seeds came from my sister in law in Peru, but I have seen them available on the Reimer Seed web site in the past; Italian Roaster (shaped like a cowhorn) - seeds from Tomato Grower's Supply, Romanian Hot Stuffer (not the banana shaped wax ones, but the ones that are pimento shaped and look kind of like "blushing beauty" bell peppers) - seeds from Knapp Chiles on BluJay (again, not the waxy banana shaped ones that JewelsandTools currently has listed!). If you try growing those large Peruvian Amarillo Aji's you will love them, but you'll want to start your seeds indoors in January. They will need a long season (as do most varieties that are native to South America). They can be finished up indoors, but several of the peppers may fall off during the move inside; they also take up alot of space. (My mother in law once filled her entire balcony top to bottom and end to end with one single Peruvian Aji plant that she'd wintered over inside of her apartment and then carried back outside the next spring!) You can also soften any hot sauce by making it into a true buffalo type of sauce; simply mix it half and half with margarine or butter. See Frank's Red Hot Sauce web site for more details. If you really like dallying with hot peppers, then I recommend you try this: de-seed a bunch of ripe hot peppers (use gloves!), puree them in a blender with some salt (do a web search for the amount of salt to use), ferment them in jars covered with plastic and a rubber band (for about a month - cleaning out the scum every day), and then make them into pepper sauce by heating the fermented paste and then adding vinegar or tequila etc... (When you cover the paste mixture, push the plastic wrap down into the jar, touching the peppers/paste, and burp out all of the air). Remember to enter your peppers and creations in your local fair too! Where I live, the fair gives cash prizes with the ribbons! I won $24 last year with my four ribbons!

To control the water issue with my plants, I use fairly large pots (>15 gallons) and I mulch the surface of the soild with stones. A lot of water is lost through evaporation of the soil and this can cause compaction and a hard shell on the surface, the rocks keep this from happening. They also minimoze soil transfer onto the peppers and leaves. That pepper sounds awesome. I only hope that I can coax my hab into growing that large. It was damaged while young so rather than a single large stem it has 5 stems ranging from 1/4" to 1/2". Without storing them indoors over the winter, I would never get some varieties to ripen before frost. I just moved on the first of October, so I have a new location to store my pepper. I'll have to keep close tabs on it and decide whether I need to try to give it a little boost with a flourescent (I don't want to spend the money to purchase a grow light, or pay for the electricity usage). I picked of a large handfull of blooms but it seems to only have caused it to bloom more, so this winter I think I will leave them on and see what happens. I have a feeling that they will just drop, but we'll see. I don't think I will add any fertilizer this winter, especially since there is already slow realease plant food incorporated into the potting soil.

Everything but my kids:) We used to bring our impatiens inside for the winter quite well. They were permanent container plants - they don't transplant quite as well at the end of the season. They didn't bloom much, but they would turn into these miniature jungle tree-looking things that my brother would hang his toy action figures in. Usually lived about four years like that, and got huge. I bring my geraniums in every year. Again, not much bloom, but plenty of foliage. Probably would have bloomed but they were on the basement floor, which is cold. Plenty of window light, though. Herbs and peppers come in to the kitchen window, northeast light. Obviously the lemons and avocados come in, and usually some ivy cuttings functioning as decoration while they root to go out in the spring. Ivy (any ivy) gets spider mites badly indoors for me unless I bathe it once a week and mist in between. I also take sedum cuttings in the fall, which sometimes bloom and root simultaneously. Also I am fond of the reverse tactic, that is, putting tropical houseplants outdoors all summer and then bringing them back in. My mom had a Chinese evergreen that got 5 feet high and bore fruit. It had mealybugs its final year, thanks to a move to a much warmer climate, and died, but we saved the baby:) Ditto boston ferns, who also want misting. Cannas CAN come in when you divide them, and they'll keep coming up as long as it's warm and bright enough. Just put one or two to a big pot, though, or they get sulky.