If you live in zone 9 or warmer, you may not have to do anything to your pepper plants to enjoy them for several years. Pepper plants can live about 5 years and possibly longer. Many gardeners in colder areas grow them as annuals but you can overwinter them very easily!
Many of you are already passed your first frost date but we aren’t quite there yet. I have been eyeing the 14 day forecast and don’t expect that we have all that much longer before that frost comes to claim what’s left of the summer gardens. This morning I woke up to 39 degrees so I know I better get on overwintering these peppers before its too late.
This part is a little heartbreaking. The plants are so big and beautiful still with only a little cold damage. Their branches are still heavy with peppers. Deep breath. It will be worth it!
So… This is actually my first time doing this but after watching multiple trusted youtubers assure me that it can easily be done, I decided it was ok to sacrifice some space in the greenhouse to try it. I can not wait to report back in the spring to let you know how it went.
Since this is an experiment and I found some new pepper varieties I want to try next year (more on that later), I didn’t want to dig them ALL up. I did one of the jalapeños and two of my favorite sweet peppers.
https://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/new-items-2020/lesya-pepper
I picked the biggest and healthiest of the ones that were growing (and the ones with the straightest trunk. A few of mine were growing wonky and should have had some support.)
So how do you do it? Well, don’t look at me! This is my first time! Just kidding. I will tell you what I did. Often when I watch YouTube or consult various blogs about a gardening topic, I will get several different answers and I end up doing more research to figure out who’s advice I should follow. Overwintering peppers was not one of those things. They each did basically the same thing. This may be a first. It also gave me the confidence that it’s not that hard.
First find which peppers you want to save for next year. Pick a good healthy one!
Harvest all the peppers that are on the branches and set out to ripen if they aren’t yet. All of my Lesya peppers were still green but they will turn red on the counter. (You can eat them green but I HATE green peppers. I blame that on my first pregnancy where the smell of them made me sick)
After you have the peppers picked, go ahead and start choppin! You want clean shears as to not introduce disease to the plant and clean between each plant. I know some people aren’t as strict about this advice and I will admit I’m not either but I think I’m supposed to say it anyway.
You don’t want to chop it all the way down you want to leave available several nodes where new growth will come form next year. The plants do sometimes die back some so make sure you account for a little of that. Make sure you take off all the leaves. You don’t want the plant focussing on that right now.
I personally was generous with what I left at first and then went back and cut it some more after I got all those leaves out of my way and could see more. If you’ve done this before, you may tell me that I could have cut back even more but… I was scared haha.
Now dig up your plant and shake off a good bit of dirt back into your garden bed. Im told that peppers don’t mind having their roots trimmed back some and even am assured that they like it. I trimmed the roots some and potted them up in some potting soil I have in the green house and gave it a good soaking.
While I was doing this, I unearthed some lovely hatched reptile eggs. The jury is out on who they belong to. Thoughts?
Stay tuned for the results of this experiment and for a list of all the peppers I want to try next year! I found some very interesting varieties including a COLD HARDY variety!! I am so excited!
