Preparing for the cold

[dod]

Well it hasn't been a great year for my first attempts at growing a few things that like warmer climates in my greenhouse. I have tried to grow tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers (both sweet and hot ones), and cape gooseberries. We have had some fairly chilly nights over the last week, with at least 2 nights where temperatures dropped below 5 deg C, and several others when it has been below 10 deg C.

I am planning to try to over-winter my peppers, but they only started to flower in August, and whilst a few fruits have set I am starting to doubt that there will be time for them to grow and ripen before conditions in the greenhouse are nolonger warm enough for them. If I were to bring them inside the house, by a southerly window, is it likely that I will be able to ripen the fruits, or am I more likely to find that they do not get enough sunlight to develop fruits?

How long should I leave them in the greenhouse before I bring them inside? If I leave it until there has been a frost could it kill the plants, thus scuppering any chance of either fruit, or overwintered plants for next year?

[Two_Sheds]

Bring them in then, you've got nothing to lose. It's heat that makes them ripen, not sunlight. Sunlight is needed for photosynthesis of course, but the plants are going to go dormant now anyway

[MartinRSharpe]

As Two_sheds said, bring them in. I had a couple sat in a window until around the end of Oct last year to get the last fruit ripened off before chucking the plants out.

As I understand it if you leave the fruit on too late they don't over winter as well (Presumably all their energy goes into the fruit and they don't go dormant while its attached?). Someone else may be able to confirm/correct