Q. Hi Peter, I had some great peppers this year (no brag, just fact)- jalapenos, serranos, poblanos, czech black, and Blushing Beauties. I really hated to till them under this fall. I understand peppers are perennials back in their own parts of the world. Is it possible to pot pepper plants at the end of the season, bring them inside over the winter, and re-plant them the next spring? Would I get bigger, better, more peppers? How long will a pepper plant live taken care of this way? Is it worth the effort? What is reality? Ok, one too many questions. Thanks again, Henry Raynor – Puyallup, WA
A. I am also quite happy with my pepper crops this year. I tried two short season sweet pepper varieties Northstar (red) and Golden California Wonder (yellow). This year was my all time best number of ripened fruit since I moved from NJ! I had a stuffed pepper feast. I still have a few fruit on the plants that I need to bring in and eat. We had a close call back in October that caused some burning on my zucchini and basil but no hard frosts yet but I’ll probably get out there this weekend and get the rest. Now back to your question. I, for one, won’t be digging them up and over-wintering them. Although some members of the pepper genus Capsicum are perennial, our garden peppers (both hot and sweet) are very short-lived perennials to the point that they are botanically named C. annuum (the specific epithet means annual if you hadn’t deduced that already). So even if the plant were able to get over the transplant shock of being potted up and you had ideal indoor growing conditions (which here would mean supplemental heat and light) the plant would be nearing the end of it’s productive life and would most likely be out produced by new plants. Better to spend the energy on starting your own seedlings as early as the end of January if you are willing to repot them several times. Grow them under growlights since even a sunny window isn’t so sunny during the winter. This will allow you to set out larger plants next year. Larger plants can mean more fruit by the end of the next season.