2015-2016 Winter Indoor Peppers

[pepperhead212]

How are those Maui Purples doing, apple? I transplanted mine the day I gave you those, and put it in the south window that my lime trees and curry tree are in, and it has actually grown about 4". However, the new leaves are all green, due to the lower amount of light, compared to 16 hrs/day under the lights! But I did see a purple flower on it...not sure if I should leave it, or pinch it off, to let it grow more, before flowering.

Since I have no other peppers indoors, if I get peppers from this plant I will definitely save the seeds! I don't want to have to go through that heat treatment to get those old seeds to germinate again! LOL

[applestar]

I have two in the Winter Paradise (indoor greenhouse) and two still in the garage V8 Nursery.

As might be expected the ones in the cool garage are slow growing but still not languishing, but I'm going to be moving all the non-dormant, young peppers into the house now that the real cold is finally here.

The ones inside have been leafing out with lime green leaves. Very pretty! But not growing very much in height. Maybe they are getting TOO much light since I have them under the double T-5 intended for seedlings.

I've been intending to put together a collage of my most ornamental-looking peppers -- so I will post their photos very soon. Thanks very much for these plants @pepperhead212

[applestar]

Here are two of the four Maui Purple pepper plants

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[pepperhead212]

Looking good! Mine actually has a blossom on it. Less purple, probably due to less light.

[pepperhead212]

I just looked at mine (first time in about a week!), and there are 4 fully opened blossoms, and a bunch of others getting ready! I got out my vegi-bee, and pollinated them - knocked one off, but the others are OK, and I saw the puff of pollen come off of two of them. I'll take a photo soon...

[applestar]

Ooh! looking forward to seeing yours.

[pepperhead212]

Here is the Maui Purple, showing many of the flowers, and you can see the green leaves than have formed since I put it in the window, after repotting it, in about a 5 qt pot. Under the lights for 16 hrs a day they were purple, but with much less light they are green, yet they still grow fast, and are blooming! Sometimes in spring, when starting them, the seedlings are a little light colored, but turn very dark purple shortly after putting them out in the sun.

[ButterflyLady29]

I've kept Black Pearl peppers indoors overwinter before. This year I'm trying to keep a ghost pepper so I can take cuttings from it. The ones I kept before and this one were originally planted in containers so I wouldn't disturb the roots when I brought them in. I keep them in the basement under shop lights that are on timers, 12 hours on, 12 hours off. The ghost had lost most of it's leaves because I had left it out a bit too long (covered when frost threatened) but it is now regrowing some leaves.

[applestar]

My mystery Peach Bhut Jolokia OR Seasoning Naga plant is finally in production mode.
It is only in a 1 gallon container but is loaded with pale green blossoms and starting to set fruits since I have been diligently buzzing with an e-toothbrush.

I really want to uppot to a three gallon container, and I can't really take a full view photo until I get it out from behind a few other plants, but I took some photos.

I guess if I taste one even while still green, it should be immediately apparent whether it's a superhot or a not-hot.

...the brown fruits sharing the top-left photo is an another unlabeled mystery-ish variety. I'm going to investigate a little further but I think it's likely to be Sweet Ingrid. I thought it was one of the three different "chocolate" varieties and was waiting for them to turn red, but as you can see, they have started to shrivel without changing color. These are a little runty from growing in one of the kids' sand pail-turned-flower pot (I would guess it to be not more than 6 qts). I have another, labeled Sweet Ingrid plant in one of the sweet pepper SIP's in the garage with a full sized fruit that is doing exactly the same thing.

[applestar]

Here's another picture of the peppers that I think might be Sweet Ingrid:

Still not sure what this plant -labeled Bonda Ma Jacques- is. It's loaded with blossoms and green fruits right now.

[applestar]

The lost-label pepper -- it's definitely not Peach Bhut, so probably Seasoning Naga.

Is it red enough yet, or does it get redder and more ripe? This first to ripen fruit is runty compared to the others.

...a few others...

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[rainbowgardener]

@pepperhead: I just read this again "Under the lights for 16 hrs a day they were purple, but with much less light [since I put it in the window], they are green, yet they still grow fast, and are blooming! "

They maybe getting fewer hours of light in the window. But depending on what direction the window faces, if it gets direct sun, they are NOT getting less light, they are getting lots more light intensity.

The reason why we put plants under lights for 16 hrs a day and keep the lights just inches above them, is that anything we can provide with artificial lights is so much less light intensity than sunlight. We don't realize it, because our eyes are so good at adapting. But stand outside your house on a sunny day and look in the windows, see how dark it is!

[applestar]

Here are fruits of NOT Bonda Ma Jacques. For some reason, they ripened more or less together and I plan to harvest them and taste them in the next few days:

As you might be able to see, the plant itself is tiny. Maybe it's a Donkey Ear crossed with something. Certainly it seems like it's derived from one of the smaller (no more than 12" tall) varieties.


These are representative cluster of fruits of the mystery Bhut. I had hoped they are Peach Bhut Jolokia or Seasoning Naga, but it's wrong color for Peach, and it is definitely hot -- more than mildly hot. So even though I thought I didn't sow any of the regular red Bhut Jolokia (aka Ghost Pepper), maybe I was mistaken:

Here's the first red ripe one I cut open. It's hard for me to take good close ups with the iPad, but maybe you can see the glistening oils on the central membrane...

[applestar]

NOT Bonda Ma Jacques. This is the smallest one that ripened first -- it's hiding behind a leaf in the photo above, but it's about 1/2 the size of the others. It had that pointy tip like all the others, but it broke off when I was washing it.

It's pretty thick-walled and thin skinned... Juicy and SWEET! I'm really surprised. Usually don't get this kind of fresh eating quality in the Winter Indoor peppers. Even the Jalapeno's are thinner walled and tough. So presumably in the summer with more favorable climate this will taste even....better?


After eating about three stick-cut pieces and sitting down to type this up, I'm feeling a tingly sensation on the front-mid top of my tongue and *maybe* a sense of warmth. not enough to say it's hot. Just a sensation. But it lingers for a good 5 or more minutes....

Very interesting pepper. I wonder if this is a true to type for a variety and I just mislabeled it?

[mauser]

So how many years can you get these peppers to live?

[applestar]

So how many years can you get these peppers to live?

I had the same question when I started out. You may find one or both of these discussion links interesting

Subject: Why Bring Pepper Plants Indoors for Winter?

Inserting the link to this discussion for sidebar reference here:
Subject: Perennial hot peppers - natural seasonal lifecycle?

Where hot peppers grow as perennials, what kind of natural seasonal transition do they go through? Do they drop leaves in fall and stay dormant and bare through the winter? How cold would it get? Or does it never get cold enough for them to deteriorate and do they stay green and productive throughout the year?

...I think the oldest pepper plant I have -- a jalapeño -- is going on its 4th winter. I'm starting to lose track, so I've started marking their containers and tags/labels with the year they were started from seed.

[applestar]

Update photo collage of Winter Wonderland

- Bhut Jolokia (suspected to be crossed with something else according to someone who has grown them for a while -- she says these fruits are not wrinkled enough),
- Yatsufusa from last year's Pepper Seed giveaway, and
- Hanoi Market which was grown from seeds from some fruits shared by pepperhead212 (Thanks! )
- you can see some supervariegated Fish leaves and fruits mingled with HM
- Larger red fruits are from mislabeled plant and has not been ID'd but are tasty, thick walled and sweet.

The tomatoes are Whippersnapper x Faelan's First Snow F2.

[applestar]

Not Bonda ma Jacques -- I have two fruits left on the plant. (One downside of Winter Peppers is it takes them a long time to ripen, advantage of Winter Peppers is that they last a long time on the plant and is better "stored" that way until ready to harvest)

Yesterday, when I was pruning down the overwintered peppers in the sweet pepper SIP's in the garage, I found these immature runty fruits on the right on the plant labeled Toli's Sweet . See the pointed blossom ends? Do you think that's what the mystery pepper might be? Is it likely for it to be only about 9 inches tall in an 8 inch diameter clay pot? I need to search for more info on Toli's Sweet.

[applestar]

Last major harvest -- Bhut Jolokia cross, Jalapeños, Tollis Sweet Italian (?), and Yatsufusa

New growths on some of the peppers overwintered in the house -- Trinidad Perfum, Dunkel Violetter, Szentesi Feher, Bolivian Rainbow

[applestar]

I harvested all of the remaining fruits from the one jalapeño plant on the kitchen window bench so I could trim it down. I was a little late doing this and had to cut off a fair number of flower buds and already opened blossoms. I'm not worried since it will quickly grow again, and will be able to grow into better shape for having had all the inward or straight upward growing as well as spindly growths pruned off. I think this plant is three years old? It's in a three gallon square pot.

Odd thing is most of them have this pointy bit on the blossom end, but it wasn't on the fruits harvested in the summer or earlier in the winter. I'm beginning wonder if this is a winter indoor garden thing. The point is delicate and rubs off easily just from handling. (there's a fruit lying on a broken off point -- 2nd one in the big cluster truss. Maybe these are pistils that normally get rubbed off fairly early in the fruits development, but due to indoor protected conditions, they have chance to stay on the fruits all the way to the end.

[applestar]

Here are two of the Maui Purple peppers that are coming back after being reduced to sticks by the TRM. So far so good

The Hari eggplant seedlings -- both in this ice cream tub and another group in yogurt cups -- are yellowing for some reason. I can't tell if I might be overwatering, if I'm not keeping them warm enough, or if they need fertilizer -- I've heard eggplants are heavy feeders. I tried adding organic 7-4-2 to the yogurt cup group yesterday, but if anyone knows what this is, please let me know. I have had limited success growing eggplants from seeds so far and I don't know why they grow sometimes and why they don't other times.

The sorry looking seedlings in the shallow tray above are salvia seedlings that got lost in the shuffle and got dried out. I do have another, much better looking group of seedlings

[applestar]

These Maui Purple are definitely coming back.

[pepperhead212]

I thought that Maui Purple of mine was gone for sure. The leaves turned about 3/4 brown, and many dropped, but a few weeks ago a bunch of new areas of new growth showed up! I figured that it had to be the increased light that triggered it.

[applestar]

Odd looking Hanoi Market (left) and Fish (right) -- I think mites are stunting the fruits

-- I picked them today because I want to give them a final haircut and prepare them for going outside (uppot/freshen potting mix and fertilize). Hopefully, the Garden Patrol will give them a good once over

[applestar]

Here's an example of what paper plants do after being overwintered. As you can see, this is a tiny plant in a 4 inch pot, no bigger than what you might grow from seed in spring, but look at what it's doing

When I uppot this or plant in its permanent location for the season, it will take off and immediately start blooming and setting fruits on multiple branches.

[applestar]

I was afraid to include eggplants in the topic title because I was afraid that would jinx them... But as it turned out, four of the overwintered eggplants seem to have survived.




I Uppotted them out of these ice cream containers into individual containers today. There were three in one container -- one of them with a white baby eggplant so presumably these are all White Comet. The other container had one plant left with flower that is lighter purple so maybe this is Diamond.

Both containers had worms in them. The two best growing, flowering plants each had a biggest worm in its roots. Gave the smaller plants their own big worms in the new containers.