How to overwinter pepper plants: 4 effective methods

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Because peppers are grown in many parts of the world as annuals, you may not realize they’re actual tropical perennials and it’s possible to learn how to overwinter pepper plants. The process of overwintering involves bringing a plant indoors during the cold months—when they would typically die in the garden—and reintroducing it to the outdoors for the next growing season. How to overwinter pepper plants isn’t as hard to learn as you might think. In this article you’ll learn four ways gardeners find success overwintering peppers.

Why learn how to overwinter pepper plants

We grow peppers as annuals in USDA Zones 8 and below because these plants would die over the winter, but another way is possible. Learning how to overwinter pepper plants is just our way of tuning into the plants’ natural cycle. Temperate-climate gardeners are typically taught to start pepper seeds indoors in late winter or shop for pepper plants come springtime. Here are a few reasons why you might want to learn how to overwinter pepper plants as an alternative means of producing peppers:

An overwintered pepper plant can start producing earlier in the year than its seed-started counterpart. You’ll be the first of your gardening friends to have chili peppers!
These plants may also provide a larger yield, because they can put more energy into growing new branches and fruit, less energy into establishing roots.
You save money on seeds and transplants with each plant you save from last year.
When you have an unusual, heirloom, or otherwise special pepper plant, it would be a shame to compost it when you could overwinter and replant it in just a few steps.
With the right grow light setup, you can even harvest peppers through the winter.

Pepper growing in a container — If you wish to overwinter pepper plants, it’s best to start planning in late summer or early autumn before the weather turns cold.

What types of peppers can be overwintered?

Hot peppers are naturally better suited to overwintering than bell peppers or sweet peppers. If you’re early in your attempts at overwintering, start with the hot peppers so you can be encouraged by your results, then move on to other types as lesson No. 2.

When and how to start the process

The process of overwintering your pepper plants starts well before your first frost. Good luck takes you far in gardening, but proper preparation is a better plan. Choose the strongest, healthiest plants for the overwintering process for your best chance at success. This may be the hardest part of learning how to overwinter peppers: You have to dig them out of the ground before they finish producing for the season. When the plants still look good and the longer, cooler nights haven’t yet taken a toll, make your overwintering plans. Take on this task before nighttime temperatures drop below 50 degrees F (10 degrees Celsius).

How to overwinter pepper plants: 4 methods

How to overwinter pepper plants is up to you, and there are four methods to use. You’ll notice these methods are the same as those for overwintering tomatoes. This is because tomatoes and peppers are close relatives in the nightshade family. Once you learn how to overwinter pepper plants, you can easily transfer this skill to your tomatoes.

Method 1: Growing pepper plants as houseplants in the winter

The smaller varieties of pepper plants are probably more suited to becoming houseplants, unless you have a lot of window space to fill. Here’s how to grow pepper plants as houseplants so you can enjoy their deep-green foliage in the winter:

Dig up the plant’s root ball. Gently remove the garden soil from around the roots.
Repot the plant in a pot that’s large enough to accommodate all of these roots. Use a standard potting mix and a container that has holes for drainage.
Prune off any injured or diseased plant parts—but remember that you should be starting with plants that are as healthy as possible.
Where you locate and how you care for the overwintering pepper depends on your intention for the plant. You’ve got a couple of options. More on these below.

Picking the best indoor site and ongoing care

Option 1: If you hope to continue harvesting peppers from the plant while it’s indoors, be sure it’s in a window that receives as much direct sunlight as possible. In its natural habitat, a pepper plant would receive about 12 hours of sunlight per day year-round. It’s hard to provide enough light for a pepper plant indoors. Supplement the daylight with a grow light, if needed. (You can now find attractive grow lights for home use, rather than just industrial-looking shop lights.) Continue watering the plant as you would in the garden, offering about 1 inch of water per week. Feed the plants regularly with a liquid organic vegetable fertilizer.
Option 2: If you intend to let your pepper plant rest for the winter, it still needs some direct light, but it requires less water. Allow the soil to dry out in between watering. Be sure you’ve harvested all of the peppers growing on the plant when you bring it indoors.

plant cutting — Taking cuttings from pepper plants and rooting them indoors is an easy way to preserve favorite varieties.

Method 2: How to overwinter peppers in a greenhouse

Gardeners in the south can keep overwintered plants in a greenhouse, much the same as you would keep them indoors as houseplants. Follow the steps above.

If you see an extra-cold night coming and need to protect them from freezing temperatures, use floating row cover over the pots, surround the plants with straw mulch, and place a few buckets of hot water around the plants to act as a heat sink. If the cold snap turns into an extended weather pattern, you might need to bring your greenhouse peppers indoors.

Method 3: Overwintering bare-root pepper plants in a box or bag

A great space-saving method among the options for how to overwinter pepper plants is bare-root plants. Rather than keeping whole plants rooted in pots, you’re keeping trimmed-down plants, without soil, in smaller containers.

The steps for overwintering bare root pepper plants are:

Dig up the plant’s root ball. Gently remove the garden soil from around the roots.
Prune back the plants. Using pruning shears, cut above the growth nodes on the branches growing off the main stem.
Keep the plants in a space that’s just 45 to 55 degrees F (7 to 12 degrees Celsius) so they go into dormancy. You might have these conditions in your garage or basement. Even in hibernation, these plants need some light, which you can provide with a grow light.
Six to eight weeks before transplanting outdoors, pot up these dormant plants and treat them as you would seedlings. Offer regular watering, light and warmer temperatures so they emerge from this period of dormancy and pick up growth.

Method 4: Saving peppers as cuttings

Gardeners can produce many types of plants by cuttings, not just by seeds. A cutting is a plant part that’s been cut from the parent plant to regenerate itself.

Cuttings also allow you to multiply your plants, as each stem cutting you take will grow into its own plant. You’re sure to get the exact same pepper plant from each cutting, as opposed to growing a new plant from seed, which can have some genetic variation.

Here’s how to take cuttings from pepper plants:

Use sharp pruning shears to snip the top 4 to 5 inches from a stout, healthy-looking stem. Remove any peppers or flowers.
Dip the cut end into a rooting hormone.
Plant the cutting into a container filled with moist coarse sand, vermiculite, or a mixture of peat and perlite. Multiple cuttings can root in one container for now.
Put the cutting in bright but indirect light, and keep it watered.
In 3 to 4 weeks, when the plant has grown roots, transplant the cutting into its own pot with potting soil. Treat it like a seedling, up-potting the pepper plant as it grows, until it’s time to plant it into the garden.

Hot peppers, like cayennes, tend to overwinter better than bell pepper varieties. But if you have healthy bell pepper plants it’s worth trying.

What to do when spring arrives

The plants you keep indoors over the winter will pick up their growth and produce new leaves as warmer spring weather arrives and daylight lengthens. If you have a greenhouse, move all of them to the greenhouse so they can start acclimating to the outdoors and get better light.

After your last frost date, start hardening off the pepper plants by placing them outdoors for an increasing period of time each day over the course of a week. (Bring them back inside at night.) Then plant them into the garden, and get ready for an earlier-than-usual crop of peppers.

How to overwinter pepper plants: troubleshooting

As you learn how to overwinter peppers, there’s a chance something could go wrong. Insect pests and disease are two common issues. Here’s what to do if you encounter problems:

I’ve had great success overwintering my cayenne pepper plants indoors. I like having a supply of the fresh fruits to add heat to my cooking.

Insects

Aphids and whiteflies are common insect pests. The best way to keep your overwintering pepper plants free of pests is to ensure you don’t bring insects inside with you. Check the plants when you dig them up, and examine them carefully for eggs. Use fresh potting soil to repot them for the winter.

If you do discover aphids or whiteflies on your overwintering plants, you can control them using neem oil or insecticidal soap according to the label instructions. You can also remove the damaged leaves and stems with scissors.

Disease

The need to start with healthy plants when learning how to overwinter pepper plants can’t be overstated. Fungus, viruses, and bacteria will continue to wreak havoc over the winter. There’s no magic cure by letting the plants rest indoors, unfortunately! Here, too, fresh soil and a clean pot can give the overwintered plants a good start. Avoid overwatering and keeping the pepper plant in a room with good air flow is also helpful.

Carolina Reaper seeds — Most gardeners grow peppers as annual plants and start the seeds indoors in spring. But you can get a head start on the harvest by learning how to overwinter pepper plants.

Final thoughts on how to overwinter pepper plants

While we’re using these overwintering techniques to essentially trick peppers into thinking they’re in a climate that’s more suitable to their liking, they don’t seem to mind. They’ll produce for you again next year and, if you keep it up, the year after that. What might start out as a gardening experiment can become an annual activity that you look forward to. While you might not be harvesting jalapeños in January, learning how to overwinter pepper plants means that when it comes time to start your garden next year, you can start with plants that have more established root systems and are ready to put their energy into fruit production.

Keep watch over your pepper plants as the end of the summer approaches so you can pick out the plants that you’d most like to keep for next year. You can mix and match the methods you use for overwintering pepper plants, sticking with the ones that work best for you. It’s nice that even gardeners with limited space indoors can pull off this cultivation technique. Once you have some success, you’ll wonder why you didn’t learn how to overwinter pepper plants sooner.

For more information on growing food indoors, be sure to read these detailed articles: