Your second question: usually, compost is primarily decomposed plant material (plant material broken down by bacteria, fungi, et al.) and manure is primarily animal-digested plant material, i.e., animal dung. Let's ignore the phrase "green manure" for the time being... ;-) But, as michaelg says, it all ends up more or less the same thing (makes sense, having all started as plant material). Manure is the more dis-assembled form of plant material, has more available nitrogen. But, home composters might throw manure into their compost pile mix to liven things up. "Soil amendment compost" derived from residential green waste might also contain decomposed animal materials (we are urged to throw bones and meat scraps into our "green bin", the contents of which are ground up at a composting facility). Commercial soil amendment products based on compost might also contain a small percentage of animal manure or other animal products: bat guano, chicken manure, feather meal, etc. So, "compost" products may in fact be a combination that also contains manure. What's in a commercial product is always listed on the bag. This post was edited by catspa on Thu, Jul 11, 13 at 14:54

I have had pepper and chile plants for three or four years as well, but it seems that the quality and size of the fruit goes down with each growing season. I would leave it there, but plant a new one (in a different location because that one has probably been robbed of nutrients by now). Perhaps, if yours isn't a hybrid variety you could just keep a few seeds from the chiles you picked. They are quite easy to grow from seed. :) Trish

They have been living in those pots for a while already, so they are used to the smell of plastic. However, they would be much happier if they got some daylight. Plants need light to manufacture their food. If they were mine, I'd line them up along the side of the garage or someplace else inconspicuous where they'll get some sun. Then be sure to water them frequently.

I'm growing a lot of different varieties of tepins, pequins, etc. I started them last month. Germination time was anywhere between 7-30 days. A few I'm still waiting on, but I don't have high hopes they'll ever germinate. Chris