Over Wintering Pepper Plants

 There hasn't been much gardening going on.  This past week we got four inches of much needed rain which is almost twice as much rain as we got in August and September combined.  It was sort of difficult to adjust to rainy days.  If I wanted to run out and check something I had to stop and think about a jacket, appropriate shoes and an umbrella.  That hasn't happened in a loooong time.  Before the rain started, I spent three afternoons digging and washing Dahlia tubers.  They are stored away now, but I still have the single flowered ones in the ground.  I am tempted to dig them up. leave the dirt on them and just throw them in a box.  I doubt that will happen though.

We have had five significant frosts in October, but my Pepper plants were still going.  I love these Black Pearl plants so much, that even though I have plenty of seeds to start more in the spring, I want to experiment with saving these plants.  Peppers are perennial so if you have the right climate, they will just keep on going.  If you don't have the right climate, you can bring them in as house plants.  Or you can force them into dormancy like a Geranium.  Surprisingly, even though we have had a lot of cold nights in the forties, these plants were still really happy and holding on to their leaves.

To force them into dormancy, you are supposed to prune them back, remove all of the leaves, and repot them in fresh soil.  This is mainly to avoid bringing pests indoors with the plants.

The roots need to be rinsed of all old soil and the can be trimmed back to be more proportionate to what is left of the plant.

I put them in gallon pots with fresh soil, and now I have brought them indoors to the workshop where I am keeping my Coleus cuttings.  They need cool temperatures and normal daylight and will need to be watered occasionally.  Being near a sunny window should work fine. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I decided not to keep the Acapulco Pepper plants as I can start them from seeds, but I didn't want all of those Peppers to just go to waste.  Just in case I ever want to heat up some chili.  These babies are hot.  I tried one and sort of regretted it.  They are too hot for my taste.  

These are edible as long as they have been grown without pesticides (which these have) and carry a Scoville rating of 7,000-10,000 which is similar to a Jalapeno.  They are not known for their taste, but It might be fun to try them just for heat,  I threw them in the freezer just in case.