Michelle..in the past I've germinated them in the cold frame, but it's been so cold this month, I still have the flat indoors. It'll go out as soon as the temps get to the 70's in the frame. I use 1-gallon nursery pots for them. I always have some broken ones, so I cut the bottoms out of them and keep them just for this purpose. I use them on the potted peppers as well. They come off when the plant outgrows them. By then it's usually warm enough. I got over 500 various nursery pots from a woman who listed them on freecycle last year. A couple of neighbors drop off theirs, and I cruise the neighborhood on recycle day, especially this time of year, picking them up.

I have small murici pepper plants potted up two to the pot. They are currently about four inches tall. This is a cultivar of Capsicum chinense common in the Brazilian Amazon. They are hot and the fruits are orange, yellow, and red and shaped like a miniature cherry pepper. I don't know if they will produce this year - I plan to overwinter mine for a good harvest next year. I'm in Northern Virginia near Washington DC and am happy to trade for interesting food plants and herbs.

Misty: I'm in zone 10 also. and though I usually start my peppers much earlier, I just started mine a week ago this year. Start them inside now under lights and the annuums you'll be able to get outside by mid/late April and the superhots about a month later. You'll have time to get AT least a couple flushes, no problem. Frost will kill them, but many growers overwinter them inside by pruning the root system and foliage and "sort of" put them in hibernation by sticking in a south facing window, water sparingly and make sure the aphids aren't nailing them throughout the winter. Type overwintering peppers in the search box. many threads on this. I find people in zone 10 do it just to see if they can or have a special plant they've been overwintering for years. To me, it's just too simple to start fresh again -- by the time I pull my plants in Late Dec/Jan, I'm already starting seeds inside for the next spring. Kevin

Thanks, Caelian and Mark! I'm getting excited about 2013 as well. As much as I like having a few pods lingering this late, I would rather have a harvest when everyone else's pods are coming in during the Summer season :-) For the Ghost Jam, yes I'm going to use Pineapple and some golden sweet Meyer Lemons for the fruit, and then these Yellows Bhuts for heat. Tons of sugar, too, of course. I almost forgot to mention....last week, some awful critter wreaked havoc in my cold-frame, tearing out my screen vent, punching a hole in the wall, snapping branches off my Hungarian Wax, Red Bhut Jolokia, Morouga, and completely knocking over my Manzano (which had been doing wonderfully in the cold compared to the other peppers). Anyhow, I'd been waiting and waiting on my two Manzano pods, only to find them both on the ground. So, they never had a chance to ripen... and this is as far as I got....