Pepper plants can be over-wintered to produce peppers the next garden season. This saves you money by not having to buy seeds or plants. It also saves you time since you do not have to invest in assisting pepper seeds to germinate, or helping small pepper plants grow to maturity. Read on to see how this can be done. Do not be afraid if some brutal pruning may be required.
I am an avid viewer of You Tube videos related to gardening. I watch more You Tube videos than regular television shows, movies and DVDs combined. This past summer I stumbled upon a video that discussed treating pepper plants like they were a perennial. I have included that video below.
The idea of saving your pepper plants and not having to start all over each year intrigued me. So, I decided to perform my own experiment this year and see if it will work for me. The video touted one of the benefits as being able to have your pepper plants already matured and they will therefore fruit earlier. This was enough to convince me. This would mean I would no longer have to start pepper seeds indoors during the winter. I’d just move my pepper plants out when the night temps were warm enough.
Original Pruning And Transplanting To Pots
I selected five different pepper plants; poblano, jalapeño, bell, cayenne and a orange sweet pepper that I do not know the type, I just like it. I saved seeds from a pepper I bought in mixed bag of colorful sweet peppers at a supermarket in 2020. They grew well in 2021. There are only 4 in the pic above. I added a poblano a week or so later. After pruning and transplanting the pepper plants, I put them in a warm but shaded area of my house to allow them to adjust to their new environment. After two weeks, I placed all five pepper plants in a southern facing window in my laundry room. Below is a pic of how they were doing in December 2021.
Update: December 2021
I will upgrade this blog throughout the winter and then next Spring when I move them outside. I will let you know how well they survive and hopefully produce for the 2022 gardening season. For care and maintenance, I check them 2-3 times per week and water them thoroughly every Monday. In a weeks time the smaller pots dry out. Several have produced blooms but I keep pinching them off. I want more energy put in leaf production. At this point I have not fertilized them but will just before hardening them off to place outside again most likely in May.
Original You Tube Video That Caught My Attention
Summary and My Thoughts:
As you can see in the pics above, I did not use a 2 or 3 gallon container. I used smaller pots that would fit on the window sill in my laundry room where I wanted to keep the plants for the winter. When pruning the pepper plants originally, I was skeptical but followed his instructions and did the drastic pruning. I’ll add more here during the winter and after they have been returned to the outdoors.
Update January 10, 2022:
The pepper plants have put on new leaves. I have had to pinch off blooms to stop them from trying to produce fruit. I want the plants to concentrate on leaf growth for now. The pepper plants are thriving in my laundry room window which faces south. Although I keep the house between 68-70 degrees, I take the pepper plants out of the window and set them on the top of the dryer when the outside temperature at night will drop below 20 degrees. .I do this simply because I don’t want them getting too cold by being close to the window. I have been watering them once per week.
Update February 25, 2022:
The pepper plants are still doing well. They are healthy. The tall one in the pic above is a jalapeño. There are two from which I continually have to pinch the flowers off. I’ve moved them from the window at night twice this month when the temps dropped to single digits. I continue to water them every Monday.