Perennial pepper plants in colder climates -- and not with forced air heating

From fruit to frutition

Years ago I was container gardening at a rental and naturally in the fall, brought the plants indoors and tried to save them.

It was a slow death with forced air heating using natural gas.

Lesson learned
Don't blame yourself when all your plants die!!

Well here's my journey to having Jimmy Nartello house plants :

First order seed -- not at any local market stands unfortunately

Fortunately my house uses hydro electric and wood furnace for winter heating (I know, it's not passive solar but I didn't build it, just bought it dirt cheap)

So if you don't have forced air:

Keep those pepper plants -- they are short lived perennials!

With any luck you'll be getting peppers a few weeks after you can put them outdoors during the day next Spring.

I don't have pictures yet because they haven't come indoors yet. They are under cover. With any luck, some will survive again. If they don't I will try again in January, and start dozen seedlings in an egg carton like I did last spring.

Don't be discouraged when they drop their leaves and look dead for about 6 weeks. If you keep them in a cool place like an east basement window, they might survive a whitefly or spider mite invasion (I gather they lurk in the soil but now you won't have predator insects). Those suckers like dry and heat. And they prey on new growth particularly.

Keep them minimally watered and don't give up on them, and you may get lucky and see some new growth in a few weeks.

I typically choose the best one or two and leave it in its pot, and the rest I downside by trimming the roots and pruning like a pseudo bonsai, and pop those in rectangular plastic 4 cup milk containers with the bottom corners cut and stick them all on a tray so they don't take up space.

This year I grew Jimmy Nartello (red, mild chilli shaped) from seed, managed to get one ripe pepper and a handful of green ones out of a whole packet but I was on crutches. The main idea was to increase the number of seeds I have and perhaps get a few to overwinter.

If your season is terribly short, having 2-5 year peppers will provide a decent yield.

You can of course grow peppers with a seed from any food pepper you like, and I have grown scotch bonnet and Thai from food store peppers

I will update this as the winter progresses