I would think you will not have a problem with cross pollination inside if you don't have insects present. I have tried isolating plants outside and it is just too time consuming ( and often resulted in no pods). My method of obtaining uncrossed seeds is to bring plants inside in the fall and remove all flowers and pods and let them then produce pods that are not subject to the outside pollinators.

I agree that you should have no problem indoors without bugs to transfer the pollen between plants. Even outdoors your pods will not all be crossed.

I like to start seeds early indoors and get some early flowers to set pods indoors and then transplant them outdoors and harvest the pods later outdoors. I can mark the pods with string.

putting a drawstring bag over the flowers can help outdoors.

You can do a google search for draw string bags or drawstring bags one word might be better.

Here is a link that might be useful: draw string bags

There was a site called Virtual Pepper that had a post where a guy used white glue to isolate his flowers-it had pics etc.of the process.
I use it but there are some drawbacks.
If you put glue on at the wrong time the flower drops off.
There is a time thats too early and too late to glue the flower shut.
For me you loose a lot of flowers but the ones that survive are pure.
I only do it to a few of my flowers at a time so I still get peppers from my plant.
You basically put a drop of glue on a closed flower before it opens.
The growing pepper pushes the glue off as it grows.
You mark the flower with a thread tied loosely at the stem of the glued flower.
Water washes the glue off so you have to watch out when watering or use the white glue thats waterproof.
I have a lot of ants etc. in my garden so using bags etc. to issolate buds doesn't work well for me,some critter allways gets in the gel cap,bag etc.
The sites gone-my bookmark goes to a site domain expired message.
One guy used a popsickle stick with a small dish/indentation in it to put a drop of glue in to coat the flowers with.
You might want to try this method on your buds.
It works better inside than out for some reason-might have something to do with moisture or sun/heat on the glue thats on the bud,I don't know.
I googled Virtual Pepper and got this link -so it's been posted here too.I found the site while surfing quite a while ago,looks like Fieldmiester did too.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pepper/msg0107330313372.html?10

He posted a link,the dead one...
I wonder if it'll come back.It was a good site.

here are some pictures and discussion on isolating a tomato flower. Pepper flowers are similar.

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/tomato/2005025852004159.html

If you use drawstring bags. You can kill any pollen on the bag by wetting the bag and let it dry. the water kills pollen.

Here is a link that might be useful: isolating

Sadly, Virtual Pepper has ceased to exist. A friend of mine used the glue method last year and had mixed results. He is going back to using tulle. I had a lot of problems bagging blossoms as most of the flowers in the bags dropped without forming pods. I believe it got too warm in the bags. I think covering the whole plant would be a more efficient method.

Here is waht a memeber of Chiles Galore reported

"The nice weather in Florida let me to try this technique over the winter. I just used plain old Elmer's glue. My first couple tries didn't go so well and I lost most of the caps. After a few adjustments, things are getting better. Here a few points that worked for me - I know some have already been mentioned:

- Don't apply the glue until the bud is fully mature and a day or two from opening. Any earlier and it will drop the bud.
- Use a small amount of glue on the end of the bud - just enough to keep the petals from opening. When I encapsulated the entire bud, it dropped every time. This might be because Elmer's is not as elastic, as mentioned in a previous post, or maybe it's a lack of air.
- I had much greater success (in the 90% range) with this method on smaller flowered varieties...but can't explain why.
- I also had more luck when I culled some of the other buds. It seemed to encourage the plant to set fruit on my isolated flowers.

I don't keep tons of seed so I typically glue several buds on different branches and/or plants and count on 50-75% actually setting fruit."

John

I wonder if anyone has tried super glue. it is watery and will flow along the line between the petals. It drys fast and secure. It would be light weight.

Just a thought.

I think the idea of gluing the petals together is pretty creative.

i agree with john cover the whole plant until you see pods. take the cover off and mark the pods. that is how i do it know because bagging each pod is a pain and i have lost a lot of flowers to the heat.you only have to leave cover on until you see the amount of pods you want.
dan

LET IT BURN

I used a liquid latex rubber i believe that I was in the 50% range of getting them to produce pods. I am going to isolate the plants this year.

Dale

Great advice and links, thanks everyone!

I think bagging the whole plant would work for me (minimal insects indoors, although i do have an osc. fan) so I'll give it a try on my next spring crop.

ohh and i doubt super glue would work, i used to work with it (cyanoacrylate) a lot, in great quantities. It wicks too much i think, ie put it on the tip it will absorb (very quickly) into any porous fiber, also it creates a great deal of heat when its curing (not noticible in small amounts to people but probably enought to fry the outer layer of plant cells, ive seen 3rd degree crazy glue burns on a coworker before!! nasty stuff)

I grow inside in a hydroponic greenhouse without insects and I never noted any crosses in my seeds.

I don't plant many seeds so my data is rather limited.