How to Overwinter Pepper Plants (They're Perennials)

By Debra Austin

The short version: Frost only kills a pepper plant if you leave it out in it. Peppers are perennials, so bring yours inside before the first freeze. Then you have two choices. Keep it growing in a bright window or under 14 to 16 hours of light, and it can keep fruiting through winter. Or cut it back, keep it cool and nearly dry, and let it rest until spring. Either way, you start next season with a woody, established plant instead of a seedling.

Your fall checklist

It's October, and frost is either already here or on the way for much of the country. Here's the order we'd go in.

Watch the nights, not the frost forecast. Once nights drop below 55°F, the plant is gaining nothing out there. Bring it in.
Pick your ripe pods before the move.
Check for hitchhikers. Aphids, spider mites and whiteflies all ride indoors on foliage. Hose the plant down, check under the leaves, and treat with neem oil or insecticidal soap if you find anything. A pest problem on the patio is an annoyance. The same problem next to your houseplants is a project.
If it's in the ground, dig it up and pot it in fresh, well-draining mix. Don't bring garden soil inside.
Then decide: keep it growing, or let it rest.

A pepper is a perennial. Treat it like one.

Peppers are perennials. The plant-in-May, dead-in-November lifecycle everyone assumes is not the plant's biology; it's what happens when a perennial meets a freeze. Cold only ends the season if you let it.

Overwintering saves you time, too. A second-year plant starts spring with an established root system and a woody trunk, so it flowers earlier than a new seedling. It's also how you keep a variety you love, or a late superhot that finally got going just as the weather turned. Growers who prune peppers into bonchi (bonsai chiles) keep the same plant alive for years. WikiPepper (wikipepper.org) covers the botany of the genus if you want to go deeper.

Option 1: keep it growing

This is the rewarding route: fresh peppers in January.

Light: a south-facing window with 6 or more hours of direct sun can carry a plant on its own. No such window? A full-spectrum LED on a timer, 14 to 16 hours a day, does the job. Nothing fancy. Rotate the plant weekly so it doesn't lean at the glass. Peppers are day-neutral, so there's no light schedule to get right. Give the plant enough hours and it doesn't know it's January.
Warmth: 65 to 75°F suits it, and most houses already sit there. Keep it back from cold, drafty windows.
Water: only when the top inch is dry. Overwatering kills more indoor peppers than anything else, and a container without drainage holes will rot the roots.
Food: if it's just ticking over, feed lightly every 3 to 4 weeks. If it's flowering and fruiting under a strong light, it's still working, so feed every couple of weeks and lean toward a bloom formula.
Pests: check more often than you did in summer. Warm and indoors suits aphids and spider mites too.

Option 2: let it rest

Less work, less space, no winter pods.

Harvest any fruit, then cut the plant back by a third to a half, down to a simple framework of main branches.
Keep it somewhere cool and dim, around 50 to 60°F if you can. An unheated garage that doesn't freeze, a basement or a cool closet works.
Water sparingly, every 2 to 4 weeks, just enough to keep the roots alive. Barely moist, never wet. Don't fertilize until new growth starts in spring.

A dormant pepper can look like a dead stick. Scratch the stem lightly with a fingernail. Green under the bark means it's alive.

Expect some leaf drop

Whichever route you take, a few older leaves toward the bottom will yellow and drop as the plant adjusts to less light. That's turnover, not damage.

If you want peppers in January

Under enough light, a pepper doesn't pause for winter. It keeps flowering. There are just no bees in your living room, so pollination is on you. When flowers open:

give the plant a gentle shake every few days
or move pollen between flowers with a small paintbrush
a small fan pointed at the plant does the same work

Species notes.

Capsicum chinense varieties, your ghosts and habaneros and Carolina Reapers, prefer high heat and want extra attention in a cool house through the cold months.
Rocotos (Capsicum pubescens) run the other way. That's the one species that genuinely thrives in cool indoor temps.
Baccatums overwinter well, but they're big, so prune them hard before they come in.

Come spring, ease it back out

When the days lengthen, move a resting plant somewhere warmer and brighter, gradually. Water more only once new growth shows, then start feeding lightly. Pot it up if the roots are healthy and filling the container. The first new leaves can look a bit odd. The plant is waking up.

An overwintered plant has spent months behind glass or under a lamp, and full spring sun will scorch it if you rush. Harden it off like a new arrival: an hour or two of morning sun the first couple of days, ramping up to full days over about a week. White, bleached, papery patches on the leaves mean too much too fast. Pull it into shade and slow down.

Watch the nights, too. If one below about 50°F is coming, bring the plant back in. It's already good at that trip.

The year-round point

This is the premise our whole nursery runs on. We grow every plant we sell indoors from seed: 16 hours of light, 75 to 85°F, all year. The nursery runs all four seasons. We don't respect them.

If you want the full indoor setup, lights, mix and temps, our indoor growing guide covers it, and the watering guide covers how much to water through winter.