Over-wintering chillies

[Primrose]

A bit too late in the season now, but the advice with photos in the link below might be useful for anybody growing chillies and thinking of having a go at trying to over-winter them to get an earlier crop the following year.
http://www.thechilliking.com/preparing- ... -chillies/

I've over-wintered chillies for 2 or 3 years now and do find that using this method gets me a small new crop at the tail end of winter, but whitefly always seems to overtake me in the end.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I do something similar, but don't reduce the stem so much. I suppose cutting so much off the top would get rid of a lot of places where whitefly could lurk so you start with clean new growth.

I find you can get good crops for two or three years like this, but then you are better starting with fresh plants.

You definitely get a nice early crop doing it this way.

[DiG]

I have never tried this but will certainly give it a go this year.

Would this also work for sweet peppers? I have found some references to people in the US managing to keep plants going for several years, but nothing for the UK.

Regards, Diane

[Primrose]

I've not tried it with peppers but as chillies & peppers belong to the same family I'm sure it would work. The only reason I've only tried it with chillies is that I don't have a greenhouse, so indoor space on my lightest window sill is fairly limited, especially as use fairly large pots. I think it's important to remove as much of the old compost from around the roots as possible. I also add a few chicken manure pellets to give the pruned plants a good new start, and they do take off again quite quickly, despite the lower light levels in winter.

[DiG]

Thanks for the advice, Primrose.

I'm very lucky to have both a greenhouse (inherited with the house) and a conservatory (new addition) so indoor, light space is not an issue. I moved my pepper plants to the conservatory before the severe weather last November and managed to coax them to ripen and harvested the last just after Christmas. I didn't think to save the plants so my trial will have to wait until next winter, but I will definitely give it a go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Diane

[PLUMPUDDING]

I tried it with sweet peppers, but they tended to go mouldy easily. They seem to need more warmth than the hot ones, so perhaps I didn't keep them warm enough.