Overwintering Peppers

In the UK we have a short growing season for growing peppers. Many peppers need a long time to ripen and if the plants are treated as annuals, they do not ripen fruit before the first frost. In order to remedy this plants can be kept indoors overwinter for an early start next year.

There are several methods of doing this. Plants can be left full size and kept like a houseplant, although watering far less than during the summer. If like me you are growing over 40 varieties, its a  good idea to cut them back and put them in smaller pots for the winter, so that more plants can be saved.

The other thing to take into account is how fast a grower the pepper is. With fast growing annuum varieties its less important to overwinter as new plants can be grown from seed early next year. Also larger podded annuum varieties don't seem to overwinter well. On the other hand there are many chinense varieties it can be difficult to get a crop off in the UK in one year. These make ideal candidates for overwintering.

Here is a pepper (Aji lemon Capsicum baccatum) that has been cut back a couple of weeks ago ready for coming indoors.

This year as well as my large plants from this year, I have many small plants that I will try to overwinter. These will have to be kept pruned to a reasonable size until the weather warms up as I do not have a huge amount of space.

 I recently topped all my chinense small plants, too encourage them to stop growing taller and to concentrate on bushing out. This involves cutting off the growing tip so that new shoots grow from each leaf node (where the leaves connect to the stem). This can be quite scary as it can look like your destroying your plant you have spent months growing. It looks drastic when first done but in the long run plants that have been topped produce a lot more peppers from a more compact plant.

Here is a plant (Cumari pollux, Capsicum praetermissum) that is at the height where it is ready to be topped.

Here is a plant (Tobago seasoning, Capsicum chinense) that has been topped. I will leave the big leaves till the new shoots grow, otherwise the plant has nothing to take in energy.

Here is a plant (Giant rocoto, Capsicum pubescens) that has been topped a couple of weeks ago. As you can see new shoots are growing from the leaf nodes. This plant is almost ready for me to chop off the big leaves.

Over winter as well as keeping the plants pruned to a reasonable size it is important to keep them somewhere warm enough and with enough light. peppers can be overwintered on a sunny south facing window sill. This can be a problem in my house as we do not have double glazing. consequently window sills tend to be too cold in winter for keeping many of my chilli varieties (maybe OK for capsicum pubescens varieties).
if you do not have warm window space then artificial lights can be used. Many people use purpose made grow tents which work well , but any space out of the way like a cupboard, can be used. I have gone with the best of both worlds and used a window that i have insulated with two layers off bubble-wrap and added a supplementary grow-light. I have another area in one of my aquariums cabinet that is also lit with a small grow-light purchased from china on eBay for very little money.

It is important to keep a close eye on all indoor peppers as than can quickly become infested with pests. like aphids. it important to hit pest hard before they get a chance to destroy a plant.

Hopefully by these methods I should have some already mature plants that are starting to produce peppers before they go out after the last frost next year.