How to Overwinter Pepper Plants

One of the problems with gardening is that with annual vegetables, you have to start over every year. Of course, you are advancing with your knowledge of gardening over the years, but you still have to grow a seed from scratch and care for it until it is mature enough to produce vegetables. For peppers, this can be painful – they will begin to act only at the end of summer. Soon after, you will be tasked with sending the pepper plant to the giant compost in the sky. Or you may leave pepper plants in the ground for too long, missing out on fall crops that could be planted in their place.

Why You Should Overwinter Pepper Plants

Wintering peppers solves both of these problems. If you dig up a pepper plant and keep it inside all winter until it produces pepper at this time, next year you will be way ahead when you plant a mature large pepper plant in early summer, it is not necessary. seedlings. This is useful if you really liked the pepper from the plant or if it tasted especially good.

Know when it’s time to bring them inside

You should have a big crop of peppers in August and it’s hard to know when to release them. Because peppers are not frost-resistant, it’s usually time to toss them out if you have a few consecutive days with 40-degree nights. Soothe your normally sad soul during this transition by bringing your children home to get through the winter with you.

Slice your peppers in the fall

We are going to put this plant into hibernation for the next six months and for that we need it to have as few leaves as possible to support it. First, clean the scissors with vinegar or bleach to avoid spreading disease to the plant. Start trimming the branches, leaving only the main stem and two forks, each with a knot, for a total of four knots. Strip off all the leaves on the main stem.

Dig up the plant generously so that the roots can be lifted from the soil. Use a shovel to remove the plant along with its roots from the garden. Turn the plant on its side and use your fingers to carefully scrape off any soil from the roots. You need to cut off all but six to eight inches of roots, as well as any roots that look diseased.

Rinse to remove insects and eggs.

Prepare a bucket of water, neem oil, and castile soap. Fill a five-gallon bucket about halfway with water. Add a teaspoon of castile soap and an equal amount of neem oil and stir. You need to dip the entire plant, including the roots, in this solution to make sure we don’t bring insects into your home. Dip the roots first and make sure all the soil has drained out. Now lower the plant to the other side so that the entire stem is submerged in water. Let each side soak for one minute.

Take an eight-inch pot (one gallon) and fill the bottom with two inches of moistened (not wet) potting soil. The soil should be held in your hand if you squeeze it, but the water should not run out. Gently place the plant in the pot, straighten the roots, and then cover with soil. You want to try putting some soil between the roots, which you can do with your fingers. You don’t plant the stem deep; Once you’ve covered the roots, simply flatten the soil a bit to stabilize the plant and lightly water it.

Remove pepper plants for the winter.

The plant should live in a room that can maintain temperatures between 50 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit. If there is light from a window, that’s all this plant needs; if not, make sure the plant gets diffused light from a nearby light fixture for two to three hours a day.

These plants are dormant so they don’t need fertilizer and need to be watered about once every two weeks like houseplants. They can grow leaves, but they should be cut with very clean scissors: the leaves are just a breeding ground for insects, and we try to keep these plants clean and healthy during hibernation.

Throw it in reverse for spring

In the spring, you will harden off this plant in the same way as seedlings. Once he’s in the garden, he’ll have an impressive start to the year, but you can start the process inside. As you plant other seedlings, start exposing the pepper plant to more hours of sunlight or light each day and make sure it is watered so that the roots are moist but never soggy. When it starts growing leaves again, give it fish fertilizer according to the instructions on the container. Treat it the same way you treat a seedling in a pot. It will begin to grow new branches and leaves, and by the time it is ready to go out into the garden, it should already be the right size.