Sweet Bell Peppers

[Scoot]

I'll take the top off a little bit as it's not that high anyway. Will the leaves I leave on fall off?

The reason my plant forked low Down was because I cut tge main stem when it was very young to force it to fork and to try and get more peppers off it.

[Thelma Sanders]

I'll take the top off a little bit as it's not that high anyway. Will the leaves I leave on fall off?

That depends on whether the plant is cool/dry enough to go dormant.

Kept indoors, mine are usually warm enough to keep some leaves all winter so they do need occasional watering, to keep them growing.

I prefer not to let them dry out/go completely dormant.

[Scoot]

I think mine will be warm enough so I'll leave some leaves on.

[Scoot]

Read a little bit that some people pot them on after pruning with fresh compost, anyone done that before?

[bramble]

I usually prune mine right down to about 4 inches.
I dont pot them on until the spring when I am sure they have made it through the winter and start to grow again.
What youre trying to do is just get them through the winter.
They will be more or less dormant.

[Zelenina]

Here's a video showing you how to do it. He's pruning a chilli rather than a bell pepper, but the method should be much the same. https://youtu.be/4fyInICbb4w

You can find quite a few other videos on YouTube about overwintering peppers and chillis. Some prune more gently and others more drastically, and some prune the roots too.

[Thelma Sanders]

I wouldn't fertilize until Spring, and I think the kitchen window ledge would be too warm for them........
I try to keep them just ticking over, rather than actively growing, until Spring.

Ask two gardeners the same question and get many answers

[Zelenina]

Yeah, I wasn't so sure about the fertiliser. I suppose it depends how dormant you want to keep them. In a cooler place they'll stay more dormant, and in a warmer place more active. One Christmas I was visiting my sister in the UK and she had a Hungarian goatshorn pepper plant in the house still producing chillis.

[Scoot]

Here's a video showing you how to do it. He's pruning a chilli rather than a bell pepper, but the method should be much the same. https://youtu.be/4fyInICbb4w

You can find quite a few other videos on YouTube about overwintering peppers and chillis. Some prune more gently and others more drastically, and some prune the roots too.

Thanks for that!

[Scoot]

If i do manage to over winter this pepper plant of mine, will it be worth trimming the roots in the spring before moving it into a 10 ltr pot? The reason i ask is because i don't want to be planting it into anything bigger than a 10 ltr pot so after i've overwintered it next winter, I'll just be wanting to keep it in a 10ltr pot the year after but i'll obviously have to add fertilizer to the compost and to do that I'll have to take the whole plant out of the 10 ltr pot, trim the roots to make way for fresh compost and fertilizer. Basically what I'm asking here is, is it ok to trim the roots on these at the end of winter/start of stpring just before the plant starts growing again, say early March?

[Scoot]

Anyone lol?

[bramble]

If I were you I would wait until the Spring. Then take it out of the pot and Have a look at the root system.
if its not pot bound, ( roots not growing through the bottom of thr pot) it should be fine.

[Scoot]

If I were you I would wait until the Spring. Then take it out of the pot and Have a look at the root system.
if its not pot bound, ( roots not growing through the bottom of thr pot) it should be fine.

What, just leave it in the same pot and not do anything to it?

[bramble]

Yes, I would prune it back and leave it in the pot it is in now, until the spring.
After you get it through the winter we will have a look and see where you can go from there.
After all, theres no point in making plans until youre sure it is going to survive first.

[Scoot]

Yeah i suppose you're right. If it makes it through the winter I'll post some pictures of it in the Spring in this thread and see what people think.

Thanks.