Kitchen Garden Forum

This year I had a load of seeds from doing my m&s shopping. I have grown mixed chillies and peppers from this. I have anaheim, scotch bonnets, jalapeño and cayenne and peppers. I have grown them in the greenhouse and they are established plants. No chillies yet but flowers are starting to appear.

I have about 30 plants so my greenhouse is full. I want to start putting some outside. I've just been putting the anaheim and pepper plants outside for a few hours for 9 days now starting from shade and now they're in sunlight. They go back in the greenhouse at night. I haven't put them out on rainy days because I'm scared of rueining them. Only windy or dry sunny days. I've decided to keep the hotter ones inside the greenhouse as I'm guessing they're harder to grow.

Anyways, my question is: am I allowed to keep them outside full time or should i keep moving them in and out like I am?
Also, when it gets to winter, do these plants stay alive if they're kept warm ? If outside, can I keep them warm by using the garden fleece or do they die after harvest?
Thanks all.

lovelytashchick, it would help if you can tell where you are - northern Scotland or south Devon?

Monika wrote:lovelytashchick, it would help if you can tell where you are - northern Scotland or south Devon?

Birmingham lol. West midlands x

You can add location to your profile, vague as you want, does help when chatting about weather and growing conditions.

lovelytashchick, nobody else seems to have picked up your query, so I will try, though my experience with peppers, sweet and hot, is much more limited than many others on this forum: Your plants will certainly SURVIVE outside at this time of the year, but will they set enough fruit and will the fruit ripen? I would certainly get most of them outside (unless you have a very large greenhouse with 30 plants!) ignorer forth to have space to grow to full size. Find a place as warm and sheltered as possible and put out the sweet peppers rather than the chillies, I would suggest. The rest depends very much on how this summer shapes up from now.
People do overwinter peppers, I understand, but your greenhouse would have to be heated for that. I have always raised new plants ion spring.

I agree with Monika, that is the best you can do. Sounds like you are growing them from saved seeds from bought peppers. A couple of points of warning; many peppers particularly commercial ones are likely to be F1 so there is a good chance they won't breed true and peppers are notorious for cross pollinating (see September KG) so grown in a mixed environment are again unlikely to breed true (perhaps not such an issue with bought fruit as they will probably have been raised in a large block of the same variety).

I've grown peppers and chillies for a number of years. Don't have a proper greenhouse - only a mini plastic one which only accommodates a few plants at the height of their growth so I mostly grow the chillies in that and the peppers outside, against an east facing house wall which retains quite a lot of warmth on sunny days.

My peppers have so far survived the cooler nights outdoors (we're in South Bucks) and in previous years chillies have often also survived outdoors during summer in a sheltered place. Both plants do like as much heat as possible. If you put some plants outdoors until the end of August at least you may find it helpful to have some fleece to drape over them if chilly nights are forecast.

My peppers are permanently outside and rain doesn't seem to hurt them or the fruits - they are slightly protected against the house wall but it helps wash any accumulating dust off the leaves.

Firstly I live in NE Scotland, so different climate, but somethings are pretty much the same over the UK, firstly, if plants are grown under cover they might need help with pollination. Every day once flowers appear I go round with a small artists paintbrush and visit each flower and remember to buzz like a bee whilst doing it as the plants might be listening.......................(I do this on indoor French strawberries as well as chillies/peppers)
By now you really should have fruit if they are going to ripen, to speed up the process, I would keep as many plants as you can in the greenhouse and feed them a couple of times a week with a tomato feed.
Taken this morning