I've tried doing this with habs and chili peppers for a couple of years without success. I put them in an eastern facing window which gets morning sun and supplimented that light with a 400W HPS light. New peppers didn't grow right and they ended up getting spider mites a lot. One year a couple of plants survived over winter this way and I was able to set them out in the Spring and they recovered to produce another crop.

I stopped doing this with hot peppers since, IMHO, it's more work and hassle than its worth. I grow a huge crop in the summer and freeze, pickle, and now dry the peppers for winter so I don't really need to be babying a live plant under lights. I do have other plants that need to survive over winter this way so I don't want to waste lighted space with hot pepper plants either.

Also, remember that around winter solstice there really isn't that much natural sunlight.

Bring them, prune top and roots way back,put them in a small pot and keep them in a warm window.

They won't make fruit w/o supplemental light.

I have better luck than above. I over winter plants without supplemental light but because I have a nice big south facing window I actually do get pods ( from small podded varieties). Those that don't get the good light mostly just survive rather than thriving but then do well in the new year. So it's worth doing, in my opinion just for the head start next year

Picked on Christmas day ( a couple of years ago)

The window with some that have been cut back- taken 12-13-06

Over wintered plants 5-29-07 (perking up as the days get longer and they get more light)-outside just for the picture

I do not have a nice window. However, I do have lots of crazy ideas. Right now I am thinking of digging up the plant. cut off all the top and roots and have simply a nub and dip that into wax to seal it all up. Put into a refrigerator over the winter. Remove in the spring and try to get it to grow.

I think the choice of wax is important here. One idea is paraffin wax, candle wax and then more sophisticated might be No Wilt Cloning Wax or Ultrafine Oil which is a paraffin wax. Maybe even a floor wax.

I remember rutabagas are sold in the stores with a heavy simple wax covering to keep them moist. Some other root crops get the same treatment. Although dipping the nub into hot melted parafin wax might be too high a temperature and kill the plant. Application of a floor wax would not require heat and one can probably do several coats of wax. letting it dry each time between dips. Then into a refrigerator for hibernation.

What do people think. Anyone with any knowledge in this area?

I am skeptical but hope you give it a try so we will know if it works. Another thing you can do is a radical prune and leave in pots. Don't need much room or light. If yoor goal is just to get the plant to survive you can get by with little light.

Galapagoense 11-12-03

Same plant 1-1-04

got me thinking ( we have had frost in northern Maine already. So, today I brought in 18 peppers ( the hanging pots contain herbs that I brought in yesterday. After they finishing fruiting I will cut them way back.

I also freeze,pickle and dry my peppers and have plenty to get thru the winter,however,i choose to try and keep some certain plants alive so that i can get an earlier start next year,seing as i live in ct and the season isnt really long enough to get some peppers to the red,ripe stage.My goal is to just have them survive,and i dont expect any growth,and not sure i would want any in the winter
.i like john f.,s idea of drastic pruning.sounds like that would be the way for me to go on this.
As far actually bringing them inside,what precautions should i as far as spraying,dousing with soap,or whatever to cut down the bugs and there eggs?,,,Would i be better off re-potting them?

Well, whatever I do I seem to end up with aphids ( I buy ladybugs to deal with them) but removing all the leaves helps reduce chances of other insects and I rinsed ( with plain water). It wouldn't hurt to use clean pots and fresh potting mix but I don't know if it's necessary.

I've never done a drastic (top/root pruning) but sure sounds like the way to go with the amount of peppers I'd like to bring in this year! I just don't have the room for 3 gal. pots my Golden Hab's are in. A few of my smaller fruiting peppers, Thai Hot and Pueblo are already in small containers, so might just leave them as is.
I think had I done that last year my Hab's might of lived.

Vera

I had some real nice habanero plants last fall and I left them outdoors to die in October. Now I am sort of kicking myself in the butt for not trying harder to overwinter them. I too like John's idea of trimming them back hard.

Last year I had them in the ground and thought well nothing I can do. But now I am thinking heck I could have dug them up even roughly and trimmed the roots and branches off and put them into small pots and brought them indoors. I should have tried with at least a couple just for practice and experimentation.

What I did last year was to bring a couple in that I has grown outdoors in pots with the prior intention of bringing them indoors. They had huge infestations of aphids. I tried almost every day to kill them all. But the poor peppers lost the battle. I also think the soil in the pots might have dried out too much.

Then this spring I struggled to make good plants. I never did get as good plants as those habs were last year. Everything seemed to grow so slow this year. Plus I missed no habs this year. I planted all new varieties this year.

I do have plenty of habs saved up from last year but there is nothing like garden fresh habs for flavor and taste to spice up the meal.

So this year I am thinking of digging up several of my numerous plants out in the garden and trimming them and putting them into small pots with clean sterile potting soil.

I want to encourage everyone to try a few. Maybe by spring time we can all share notes and come up with some improvements on the best way to handle this and turn the problem into a solution.

By the way I got a couple of leads on local places that might rent me some space in heated greenhouses all winter. I want to encourage people to find places that keep a greenhouse warm all winter. It seems to me if the rental is reasonable it might be a good way to keep them alive all winter without so much fuss.

If anyone finds a low cost place please let me know. I am willing to go to some lengths on this plan. I was even thinking of shipping plants to florida for the winter. haha. go on vacation.

Also looking for a place that might reproduce my plants by tissue culture. If anyone knows a place please let me know. I remember people saying there were places in florida that do it for people.

If you two try the drastic prune, keep in mind that was my one try at that so I'm not recommending it as a proven method ( the person I learned it from did it regularly, however). That said, I hope you will try it and report your results. I have several huge plants inside right now trying to ripen some pods and may try the prune on some of them after they finish ripening.

john

Last winter I tried to bring habaneros and cayennes in and they just shed there leaves. The leaves became very brittle before falling off. I thought that they were dead and put them out. Does this happen if you don't prune the plant before bringing it in? What does pruning the roots do for the plant? And can you propagate from the root cuttings? This year I am using worm castings as a fertilizer.

My brother-in-law asked me 5 years ago if he could bring a couple habanero pepper plants inside over the winter. I told him I doubted it would work, and even if it did it wouldn't be worth it. He didn't listen to me, the biologist and supposed garden expert. His plans are were 4 years old when he got lazy last fall and they were killed by an early frost. They had produce unbelievably well every summer. The stems became woody like some kind of small shrub.

Every fall he'd bring them in and stick them by a window. A lot of the leaves would fall off, and they would get sickly looking. They seem to adjust after a month or two, and they perk up nicely- even flowering sporadically all winter long. He made no attempt to pollinate them, so they never set fruit.

When he took them out in late spring, they would go berzerk and yield huge crops way way earlier than you would expect. It was pretty cool. I'm going to try it with a serrano this fall.

frankly its the only way to grow a rocoto up here in zone 5. they dont do jack squat the first year.

i use grow lights in the basement to keep peppers happy and healthy over the winter. i have to prune in the spring becasue all the growth over the winter without any wind makes them kind of spindly and weak. i also have to stop trying to put plants out in march. just because the sun is shining, doesn't mean its the right time for set-out. :D the march wind rips them to shreds. its just so tempting to get an early start by putting the plants out during the day...

My husband loves to grow peppers, which he then wants me to can, etc. (Of course.)

He was given several Datil pepper plants by his mom, and we've got them in a large rope handled tub, so we can bring them inside this winter. I guess we can try that with his other peppers. (If I let him.)

Well I did it to a few Habs John!! Just about made me sick to be so cruel LOL! The Golden Habs just didn't do squat this year for me. Out of 3 healthy plants I reaped just one mature pepper (yesterday) and have 2 or 3 small ones that just started coming on this one and none on the other (pruned this one down today). The one with the fruits is going to come in as is until they finish maturing and then it'll get the same treatment but not as radical. The Pueblo were NOT supposed to be variegated, but one just happened to be so and I have brought this in (fresh potting soil)...very pretty plant.... and left in it's 12" azalea pot and another non-variegated Pueblo, same size pot that are still producing LOTS of fruits.

Vera

I guess we can try that with his other peppers. (If I let him.)
**********

Of course you can let him!

What more to make a woman happy then a house full of flowering plants.

Vera

Be sure and keep us updated.

john

John F and have both pruned plants radically with great success. First pic is the pruned tepin. Second pic is the same plant 10 mos later.

To strengthen the plants as they grow so the winds of the spring doesn't tear them up is to have an oscillating fan blowing on the plants as they grow. It will help the stems grow strong enough to withstand the spring winds.

I heard an oscillating fan is also good for keeping spider mites off plants.

I got late germination on my four peppers this year - fluorescent purple, lemon drop, starfish, and a mystery bell (turned out to be chocolate if I can believe the early fruit color). The hot pepper plants are still in really small pots so they're coming in and going in a west window for now and possibly south if they don't like the west, and hoping the bell will hustle and do something before it's too late because it's too big to bring in.

I know what I did wrong earlier in the season (just about everything) and hope next year to have bigger, producing plants by this time next year.