Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi

Searched the forum and found a bit about this but would like more
advice. I have quite healthy chilli plants on lottie and would like to
try this. Would it be OK to dig this up and pot them? Do I prune them
back? (Although they have loads of immature chillies on them I'd
like to try to ripen first) Any particular compost? Any heat needed?
Does this give you a head start next year so more might ripen outside?

Thanks in advance.

Westi

I will be interested in the answers you get Westi, I bought a couple of chilli plants from the garden centre last summer that were reduced toward the end of the season. I thought maybe they would romp away on their own in good soil in the conservatory. Well they leafed up, and then just sat there, all winter doing nothing. So in the spring I repotted, and fed them and looked after them for a while. They did nothing beyond looking sick. I chucked them away in the end and decided to start properly next year.

I've over wintered a few different varieties in the conservatory very successfully for a couple of years now. I let them finish fruiting and then trim the plants back. Keep them on the dry side over winter and in spring either re-pot in fresh compost or top up what is in the pot. Bring them into growth by giving a feed and a bit more water and you can have flowers and fruit starting in May.

I've had some success overwintering Capsicum Chinense, in the conservatory (so not freezing, but not warm, a little moisture to stop it drying out completely). Lost a lot of leaves but sprutted out from lower down in spring, and produced a better crop for the early start. I've not successfully overwintered Capsicum annum, which is a perennial but usually grown as an annual as the name suggests, probably through lack of trying because I find it best to grow new pest free plants from seed.

A couple of years ago, around this time of year with the nights getting chillier, I dug up a couple of surplus chilli plants from a border, put them in 8" pots whilst they were still bearing a few chillis and brought them inside and put them on my living room window sill. I was careful to keep the compost moist and mist the plants until they settled down. The chillis ripened. I then cut the plants back to some lower shoots and they did flower again sparsely and bear a couple of small chillis. However, at that point in mid winter, the whitefly got to them and despite attempts to get rid of them, I finally had to accept defeat. If you can overcome the whitefly problem, and possibly repot with some new compost or boost them with liquid fertiliser in early spring I can't see any reason why they shouldn't crop again next year.