Where to put chilli plants?

[OverWyreGrower]

I've got a couple of little Purple Gusto plants (from JeanieD) and a Scotch Bonnet plant to overwinter...

They are currently on my kitchen windowsill, however, our kitchen has no heating in it (and neither does the rest of the house)...

My office at work is warm, and my windowsill currently gets sun all afternoon. Would they prefer to overwinter there, or should I try and find somewhere in the house?

(Nowhere in my house is as warm as my office is btw)

[womble]

I overwintered mine last year in my front porch, when the weather became really bad and below freezing, I brought them inside, then out again when it got better.
They don't want to be too warm over the winter I would suggest, your house sounds perfect.

[Two_Sheds]

Mine overwintered on a kitchen windowsill, neither warm nor sunny (about 10c at a guess?)

Expect to get lots of aphids and whitefly ...

[buzzingtalk]

Ahh, I bought mine indoors last week and got small bugs around them - aphids im guessing, given your explanation

I want to overwinter mine, but my scotch bonnet is HUGE. And my 2 cayennes, although bearing a lot of lovely chillis that taste lovely, they don't look too good. I don't there is enough light coming into my house now winter is setting in leaves are a bit droopy, and the cayenne that was in the kitchen for a while has leaves that are a bit yellow.

My jalapeno is quite big too, and the leaves are a bit funny on that one, too.

Can you cut them back/prune them for winter? If so, how much do you do it?

[Two_Sheds]

The leaves will naturally fall off in winter. I did prune mine last year, but I won't this year

[annacruachan]

I did prune mine last year, but I won't this year

I don't know the relative pros and cons for pruning, TS. Can you enlighten me?

I've overwintered an Apache without pruning, but have pruned my Alberto's Locoto, Apache, Cayenne, Mazzetti and Gindungo Cahombo this year 'cos I read somewhere on here that that is what you're supposed to do!

[womble]

The leaves mostly fell off mine, when the new ones came through in Spring. I think.
I pruned mine, I'm not sure why you are advised to do it. I'm not sure whether to do it this year or not.

[buzzingtalk]

My main reason for pruning is that there is not enough window space! In fact there is pretty much no window space in my house, so downsizing the plants would help muchly in my hunt for space...hmmm

[jpdw]

My various chilli plants (mainly Cayenne) are still fruiting albeit slowly. I'd like to bring in at least a couple of the plants to keep for next year but they are in a raised bed not pots, so I'd need to repot. Do you think they would survive? Should I wait to pick the last of the fruit first?

[tamsin]

I chop mine right back cos they were looking a bit sad, it's warm enough in our house they've probably grow and have a full crop of leaves by spring - maybe even flower. You can chop them back so they are literally just a trunk and chop that to whatever height you need to fit on the sill.

[StephenH]

...my scotch bonnet is HUGE...

[jacob]

The leaves on mine shrivelled up and died. Then the stems went brown.

They didn't grow any new leaves. I'm going to put them somewhere warmer this year...

[buzzingtalk]

I chop mine right back cos they were looking a bit sad, it's warm enough in our house they've probably grow and have a full crop of leaves by spring - maybe even flower. You can chop them back so they are literally just a trunk and chop that to whatever height you need to fit on the sill.

What about the roots/pot - I heard your meant to downsize the pot. Mine haven't fully grown into their pots and the scotch bonnet in particular is HUGE (about 2ft by 2ft), I'd love to keep them but do not have enough room for them. I'd need them in much smaller pots to be able to store them somewhere warm enough for overwintering (i.e indoors). Is this possible?