Bringing pepper plant in for Winter?

[OhioGuy]

Has anyone successfully brought a pepper plant in for the Winter? I brought one of ours, a jalapeno, in just a day before we got our killing frost last week. It is transplanted into a 4 gallon bucket near a south facing kitchen window. I think it needs to re-establish its root system, but I do see some tiny green leaves here and there. I pruned back most of the plant, because it had grown far too tall. I felt that I needed to lessen the demands on the roots in the short term. Plus, with fewer leaves, I could look them over more easily for aphids.

Anyway, does anyone have any tips or suggestions from having successfully taken a pepper plant through the winter before? Thanks!

[Dioclese]

Just curious. Jalapenos are easy to grow, and grow quite tall as you've seen yourself. Wondering as to why your not planting seed next season instead...

[OhioGuy]

Mostly I'd like to see some green over the next 3 months or so, and I only have room for a single large plant. New baby on the way for our family in Feb or March, so I can't really mess with seedlings this time around.

[zxcvbob]

I've done it a few times with unusual pepper plants (like an accidental jalapeño x C. chinense hybrid.) It's a lot of trouble. You'll be doing good just to keep it alive all winter, then when you plant it out in the spring it will lose all its leaves and then leaf out again and start blooming -- if you can get it that far.

You probably won't get any peppers in the winter.

Bob

[Dioclese]

Very unusual, an indoor jalapeno meant for eye appeal. Good luck on the baby.

[Dee]

OhioGuy wrote in news:gfml2d$pis$ [e-mail]:

I did this one winter with a serrano pepper plant. I put it in a room with a south-facing window and watered it sparingly. In the spring I re-hardened it off slowly by putting it outside on my deck on warm days and bringing it in in the evenings. I remember it flowered much sooner than the new pepper plants I bought as seedlings, and I received another nice crop of serranos from it that second year.

Dee

[gunner]

some good reading material: