I had horrible experience with those self-watering pots. And I promised myself NEVER to buy them again! You see, roses grow very quickly and they don't like their feet wet. The one I had has this black plastic layer with tiny holes that you put inside the pot. When it was time to transplant my roses, all the roots had penetrated through those tiny holes and they wrapped themselves around the black plastic layer. They looked suffocating and their roots were wet all the time. Ordinary, cheap plastic pots are much better than those self-watering pots.

They are hardy only from z8 IIRC. They could be grown indoors, I just do not have space. When it starts getting cold, I take them inside and stop watering. All foliage will die down. They can stay in the pot in the soil for month as long as they are not watered. Or bulbs can be taken out and kept dry until spring potting. I have done both. Leaving them in pot is easy, just start watering (anytime you decide) and they start growing. I started watering above pot in Feb...bit to early, but wanted some blooms, haha. Even that pot has taken some valuable space... Bulbs are quite small, average maybe size of a chickpea or tiny bigger. I have some other bulbs I do same with...(Sauromatum venosum and Amorphophallus Konjak...those bulbs get bigger every year. These get dormant. Also plant I grew from eddoe tuber bought in food store, and few colocassias...so many interesting plants - soooo little space :)

It's certainly been a learning curve! Things I thought I'd never do, I ended up doing (I treated every plant remaining with everything I had- anti-bacterials, fungicides, insecticides, miticides, etc., thus they will remain indoors for quite some time, so I don't hurt any beneficial critters). Eventually, I'll replace what was lost, but for now, I am grateful for what has survived! Thanks for the empathy, and again, I am sorry for just disappearing. It was a stressful ordeal, combined with the everyday stress of life, and I needed to just get away from it all. I also made my Facebook private and deleted everyone, including groups. No offense to anyone; it had nothing to do with the plant issues. There were just a bunch of people I didn't know trying to friend me; people with Ebay issues were contacting me on FB instead of Ebay; and some random strangers (no one ya'll know- hopefully) were asking for things they should not have been asking for (freebie plants were not the only thing asked for...ewww). I don't mind chatting here and sharing photos here, and will continue to do so (when I have the time), but from now on, my Facebook will be off-limits, for privacy reasons, and for my sanity. As soon as I am confident that my plants don't have any further issues, I will replace my favorites that were lost, and eventually, I may start trading. I don't think I'll be selling any time soon (to busy with my "real job"), but perhaps, in the future?

Seysonn - where have you been hiding? Over at TV? Farmerdill said bells need more magnesium not potassium. I'm going to try the Epsom Salt on the bells this year. I'm growing 2 of each variety so I'll add ES to one plant and leave the other without as a control. In the last couple years I've fertilized my peppers with Tomato Tone at transplant and Texas Tomato Food every 2 weeks during the season. This year I bought the Urban farms Vegetable formula which has 50% more N then the TTF and will use that on peppers. I'm hit a miss on bells. Some years the harvest is poor and others are great. Last year was a poor pepper year overall but I blame it on the soil in the new raised bed I had them in not being the best. The peppers I had in another bed did much better but they were not bells. Unless you want bells for stuffing, I would agree with others advice to try some of the sweet horned shaped peppers. Escamillo is another good one,,,similar to Carmen but yellow and a little thinner skinned. I'm trying Corbaci this year if I can get the seed to ever germinate. First planting was 0/2 after 2 weeks on a heat mat I've gone thru around 20 bell varieties trying to find the most reliable large red, orange, and yellow bells for my garden. This year I'm growing Gourmet F1 (orange), Flavorburst F1 (yellow), King Crimson (red) and Olympus (Red). Flavorburst and Gourmet I've grown before. Last year Flavorburst were the best bell in my garden. The 2 reds are new to me this year and are replacing Ace and Big Bertha in the Red bell category. If you want a big red bell Big Bertha is a good one but fruit quantity is not very high some years.