Overwinter chilli plants?

[Two_Sheds]

Can someone describe how to cut back chilli plants in layman/simple terms?

You just cut the 'branches' back to a few inches tall.

However, as I said earlier, my pruned chilli didn't get off to a good start, so I'm not cutting them back this winter.

[buzzingtalk]

all of the branches? I'm gonna get rid of one of my cayennes as its not doing too well (or course, after i harvest the fruit!) but i want to overwinter the 3 others - so i trim all of the branches down, so there will be no leaves on it? the main problem is they are in biggish pots and theres not enough room - can i downsize the pot too? and trim the roots like bonsai?

[Two_Sheds]

I wouldn't trim the roots, no. And the leaves are going to drop off anyway. Go on, cut it !

[coreopsis]

What about the ones with the fruit still on them?I can strip fruitless ones off the leaves no probs(just to avoid this horrible little bugs).

[danmon_81]

Im going to cut back....cut roots down and re pot in fresh compost in smaller pots.

@coreopsis - only leave the fruits on for a bit to ripen or remove and ripen with banana or dry or freeze.

[danmon_81]

over wintering chile pepper plants

[buzzingtalk]

I took the plunge 2-sheds. Cut one of them right back, so its just got a few more fuit on it. Am gonna chop it properly on wednesday though.

One thing I've noticed though, my cayennes are all yellow, and some are dark yellow - but they are going softer and aren't quite a smooth as they were -is this a problem?

[kittyvonsometime]

does anyone know if you can do this with aubergines? Am trying to overwinter my pepper plants and chili plants and so far so good, which is saying something considering where i live (iceland). all of these are still flowering and fruiting and the aubergines i brought in are also just starting to reflower. I didn't consider trying to overwinter them until i saw the new flowers.

[zazen999]

Well, I overwintered a tomato cutting and it produced this year so if the environment is right then what have you got to lose?

[lettucegrow!]

Thanks for the link danmon, that's a good info place,ta!

[danmon_81]

Once you become addicted to chilli's (and you will)....have a look here:

Chillis Galore Forums • Index page

[buzzingtalk]

Sad day

I'm gonna have to chop down all of my chilli plants that are in my bedroom The flies are just too much! I don't mind them tbh but my OH is going to do his nut when he gets home later as there are way more of them now and they are buzzing around all over the bedroom

I think they are fungus gnats, we have neem and some other stuff for putting in the soil to kill the larvae/eggs but its not working quickly enough - theres loads of the buggers and I'm scared they are going to infect all of my other plants and house plants around the house.

We had an infestation downstairs too - I had loads of plants in the kitchen that were practically swarming. I repotted all of them, gave them lots of sprays and root treatment and *fingers crossed* they are faring much better. But its a lot colder in the kitchen so that might be a factor. Going to spray them again today. (I have 3 ginger plants, eccinacea, spider plant, some sort of tree cutting, another tree-like house plant, and some parsley).

The jalapeno in my bedroom for some reason is doing much better resisting the flies so I'm gonna keep him going, although the fruit is ready so I'll have eaten it all in chilli con carne's over the next week, then get him sorted for overwintering.

I might try repotting and chopping back my 2 cayenne plants like I did to all my kitchen plants, but what do I do with the yellow chillis? Is there any way of ripening them to red, or should I just prepare them as they are? They are starting to go quite soft so I don't know weither the gnats have affected the chilli. The jalapeno fruit is much healthier in comparison...

[buzzingtalk]

This is warfare!!!

Right after some advice on here, I've decided to do a little experiment...Lets call it BT vs Flies!

Here are my lovely 3 chilli plants, 2 cayene and 1 jalapeno. This is the jalapeno below....



This guy is quite sick - the leaves are yellow and wilting and it seems the flies/insects got the better of it.



And, this is my experiment:

I got some pictures of sweetcorn out of a seed magazine (so its yellow!) and decided to see if fungus gnats like yellow. On 2 of the plants I placed a picture of corn with vaseline rubbed over the top of it:



(in this one, in 5 mins already there was s greenfly stuck on it! i didnt even know there were greenfly on these plants )

On another picture of corn I smeared some oily massage cream that has honey in it - and put this one on my most infested plant...



Anyway, I'm gonna keep you posted on whats going on. Hopefully the buggers will be attracted to land on the corn! Any other suggestions, let me know!

[Two_Sheds]

1) shake the plants while holding the sticky trap over it: the flies should go up and get stuck

2) I've never know a cayenne to be orange ...? Mine are green then red

[buzzingtalk]

Typo! Cheyenne. Doh.

No insects on the traps this morning - don't think it is sticky enough. Time to get the honey/oil out...