Grow the Same Pepper Plant Two Years in a Row! 

I would love to see an update on how it grew after pruning it back!

I actually did this on accident once. I brought a pepper plant inside I didn’t feel was done ripening to avoid an early frost damage in early Fall. After I got the peppers off it started shedding leaves slowly so I cut it back. I didn’t know that it was perennial I just did what I would have done to any other plant that seemed to still be living. It hung on until the next year and I put it outside when the weather broke in the spring. It lived to produce again. I thought it was a fluke thing but I’m glad to know that I can do the same for a much loved plant. I have one now that I will be doing this with this year. ☺️

I did this as an experiment last year not knowing what was on this video. so i turned our hot pepper into a house plant at the end of the season last year, i only took off a few of the really long stems and left my self with a good two an half feet tall and about two foot wide indoor pepper. as it was in the diner it was very warm in there (the boiler is in there) it only shed a couple of leaves and then continued to grow. It started to grow rather quick at the end of feb, and now i have the start of flowers already at the end of march, amazing for central england ;-) am now slowly working my way through the rest of your videos lol xx

Hey did you ever do a followup video on this one? What the pepper plant looks like in the spring, when to expect it to come back to “life”, etc? Thanks!

As someone who just recently found interest in sowing and harvesting. I've actually had a cachucha pepper plant for 4-5 years and never did anything to it over winters in FL and thankfully it kept producing. It's a trooper for sure. As additional note, even through multiple nights of 30-40 degrees F.

I kept a Jalapeño for 4 years (CT.) It was in my sunroom during winters. Nice production for my family. I rarely trimmed or fertilized it (BEFORE I FOUND EPIC GARDENING! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽) I just new potting soil on top every spring.

Thanks Kevin, you have given me some inspiration for keeping favorite peppers. In the past I have collected the seeds from the favorites and perpetuated the plant that way - and of course with cross pollination they weren't exactly the same; NOW I can keep the favorites forever. You are still teaching this old dog new tricks in the garden.

This is much easier when you live in San Diego.

Did this last season and the production double this season. Just pruned my back last week again for the overwintering this year. Great video!!

Great video, very simple and informative. I had a delicious cayenne last year from seed that I overwintered, cut it down considerably like you did, brought it inside, and by mid-May I already had a whole bush of green peppers! I live in Baltimore, so no sunny socal, but it's so satisfying when you see that first green leaf poke out in the beginning of Spring!

Zone 7B here and I take mine inside but also put them in a colder, dark room to make sure there is no growth during the winter and hydrate it very very rarely as with the cold and dark they kind of go into hibernation

OMGEEEE!! You finally zoomed in! 👏 Now I can see what you’re cutting better. Thank you so much for all the videos in the past that I have watched 😅 I’ve learned an awful lot from your videos 🤓 thank you 🙏

Love that, thank you! Here's hoping you do a vid on how to take care of the pepper plant during winter, and how to bring it back.

Thank you, Epic! I will use this on my first pepper plant when I grow it!

Here we have zone 5 winters and the summer doesn't get really warm. So I am growing peppers as house plants. I have started 12 plants now though. To experiment with how well they do in the sunroom over winter and then outside in summer.

I have a couple of pepper plants that I have had for 4 years. I bring them indoor in the winter, then back outside in the summer. They also give out peppers during the winter while indoor.

This works great! I live in PA so I have to bring them inside for the winter. Friendly tip. When cutting branches off leave some green on them. If you cut too far into the brown they have trouble coming back. I cut my oldest pepper down too far last year and it didn't come back 😖

Thank you so much for the great, short, videos. You’ve helped me along my way of trying to grow a few vegetables for my first time.

Most satisfying gardening videos ever 😍

Here in Portland, OR - I have done this for years with Serranos and others. My oldest plant is a 4 year old Ancho Magnifico pepper and it's going gang busters this season. I plant out in the ground once soil temps are 65+. I make a hill and compost around it thoroughly. In the beginning of October I carefully dig it up and pot it up - in a size appropriate pot. I don't cut it back right away. When night time temps start to go below 45 degrees, I bring them in and put them on the edge of my grow bench in the basement so they get a bit of light. I used to cut them back just slightly, but had major aphid problems (Nothing store bought worked to get rid of them. Then found this online - 1 part dish soap to 40 parts water - spray, let sit 20, rinse with water spray, water thoroughly). Last winter I set them farther away from the lights and cut back as Kevin recommends. The Anchos and Serranos made it, but the Jalapenos, Santa Fe and Sombrero peppers didn't. Don't know why for sure, but I believe I wasn't careful enough digging them out of the garden.

You made this sooo easy. Thank u

I can confirm it's very much possible. I have tried this with my ghost pepper from last year. Now it's sitting in a pot in my garden full of fruits, full of life. However I've heard from other gardeners like Mark from self sufficient me that after the 3rd year they won't produce anymore. Maybe a few. You might want to compost it, but if you're into bonsai, you can report it in a pot and train it. That's actually what I'll be doing with the ghost pepper next season. Love your vids, btw:)

I have been gardening for about 5years now...had no idea sbout overwintering. I am in zone 5, but am going to bring my peppers inside and see what happens! Thanks!

Love these kind of videos!

Did that on accident this year... Living in zone 10, grow tomatoes, peppers, basil, strawberries, etc. in a raised bed. In spring, would usually rip them, redo the dirt and replant new plants bought in store. Did not do it this year because of the pandemic, so they remained in the bed and... sprouted again! Getting tomatoes, peppers, basil and strawberries right now. Been since cutting back healthy plants with well established roots every few months after harvest to get new growth.

I have a 4 year old cayenne plant and I live in New England. It's in a window box I bring in for winter. I polenate by hand and have fruit in winter.

WOW!!! Thank you for sharing!!! Wonderful tip 🤗👏

I'm in Scotland so we do struggle to grow them outside and I grow my chillies on the windowsill, using the windows as a kinda greenhouse. This tends to keep them well, I use chilli focus ( a seaweed extract feed) and will use one capful as apposed to two during flowering in a 5L watering can. Though the issues I find are mostly keeping the right moisture level in winter this has cost me a plant or two. I also only cut back after winter, this may have cost me a Habanero plant this year though as it unexpectedly died, to encourage the new growth at the start of spring.

I am going to try to propagate the cuttings this winter to see if I can get some clones next year.

Hey Kevin! I appreciate the tips in all your videos! I live by you; I’m over in Talmadge and a lot of the issues I was running into have been solved with a lot of these vids being that it’s SD based temps. Appreciate the content ! -Teddy-

My second year brazilian starfish have had a great year. I overwintered a few others as well. A couple didn't make it but I'll take whatever I can get. It's nice to have those earlier producers when the new plants are still young.

Good stuff! Love your video's mate😊 Yes it would be good to see a video explaining what you do to over wintered chilli plants after the winter into spring💯

Yes, please give updates! I was able to cover most of my peppers from an early frost. So I am going to try this. I have successfully overwintered peppers prior, but did not know I could help them to go dormant. Thanks for the tips!

I had some great tasting, very productive poblanos this year, I’ll give this a shot, nothing to lose. I also kept seed for next spring, may try both.

2:31 why is there a lonely little pepper on the floor on the top right hand side of the container?! Lol 😆

I'm overwintering 2 of my plants from this last season and cloning them, both accident crosses and really liked them and want to try and stabilize them over the next few years

Zone 6b for me. Thanks for this!

Making bonsai with Epic Gardening.

I was thinking about making a pepper plant into a standard, would look awesome in the garden covered in peppers.

I'm looking forward to the sequel!

Thank you for a very succinct and informative video.

When I first started gardening I left a pot of Thai chili pepper outside over winter. No pruning, no care, no nothing. It looked scraggly in the winter/spring, but boy was I surprised when it came back strong in summer! That’s what made me think peppers could be overwintered, and started googling it. What a surprise!

Keep up the great content!

I did not know that peppers were perennials. Thanks for the info.😄 I will try this next year.🌱🙏

Summer of 2020 I got Cayenne plant and I have been growing it inside. It's been blooming all winter! Since it's started warming up it's getting more blooms. But no fruit throughout the winter. So I am hoping it'll get some good yields summer 2021. I don't want to prune it too much because I want it to over grow in order to propagate. Thanks for the video!

very interesting, kevin. i never thought peppers were perennial. thanks. have a great thanksgiving.

I live in a cold zone. I plan to pot my herbs, maybe I will grab some pepper plants too! My basement has a bit of constant light and achieves dormancy temperature but not a hard freeze. I can hardly wait! So many perennials I won't have to start from zero!

I could have done this in my lasagne pepper bed last year for this summer. I just didn’t know it was possible. I am in zone 8a, and I had a Chile hedge lasagne bed last summer. The chiles had 2”-3” diameter trunks. I will be trying this this this fall for next summer.

Possibly a dumb question, but do you continue to water the pepper plants over the winter, and if so, how often?

I had a pepper plant that I overwintered but didn’t prune, it came back but the peppers were half the size of the previous season. I will try pruning them next winter

I've planted peppers that failed to thrive where they were one year, potted them to bring them in over winter, they grew a TON, started acclimating them to outside again and they lost all their leaves in a wind storm and STILL are living to produce peppers. Hardy things they are!

Absolutely great tips 😊

People who say it’s hard to overwinter superhot chillies haven’t tried (not that I tried very hard but), I just overwintered a Carolina reaper, gave it a trim, almost forgot about it, when I remembered I gave it some fertiliser, gave it some water when I remembered, and apart from that left it alone, now it’s growing real nice, it got to -3 c some days -1 for like 3 or more days straight and its perfectly fine, am from Aus so hence why its only just starting to get growth, oh and it was Outside the entire time

I am in san diego too (inland area) and i just kept a pepper in the ground no pruning - I have harvested jalapenos in DEC,JAN,FEB - i think i will just keep it going for next summer too

"" a winter killing frost"" ahh yes I too experience frost that kills winte.

When the Farmers' Market was open, I talked with a couple of the Master Gardeners from the county's extension office. The program is expensive and very labor intensive. But, I did talk with the ladies about plants that I was growing in my container garden. They said that I could overwinter the pepper plant. When I asked how, they both said that I should cut it back and mulch it really well. If I use your demonstration to go by, I think I cut my pepper plant back too much. I did mulch it with what I have to work with--leaves and sunflower stalks. I'm learning as I go. Thanks for posting the video. It would be nice if you lived in a comparable climate. We have already reached today's high of 34 degrees. It will be interesting to see if the pepper plant roots will survive the winter months.

Hoping year 5 of overwintering goes well for my Serrano pepper plant. Zone 10b. Maybe I’ll try cutting it back this time per your great video!

Got my seeds started way too late in the year, but that's OK since I planned to do this anyway. Czech Black & Leutschauer are lovely and mildly hot: 2,000 to 5,000 Scoville. No mature fruits this year - but next! I like your approach & will be tending to them within days in similar fashion. I live in zone 6, expecting killing frost in the next 4-6 weeks, but dropping light levels at almost 49° North are already putting peppers to sleep. Simple & direct video: Nice job!

Do you have videos of your overwintered peppers growing again the following year?

I did almost the same (here in Russia, we have rather harsh winter, a lack of sun). It (pepper) felt not that awsome till march. But now i have the third harvest in a row, that hardy plant is not going to die)

Great video, great tips! I have to bring my peppers in, the frost and snow kills most plants where I live. Once spring comes around, my ghost pepper plant will start it's second fruiting. I'm excited for those. =)

This is my first year overwintering some of my best pepper plants, and I'm really anxious to see how well they do next spring. I hate how my tomatoes are all ready so much sooner than the peppers, and every year I find myself buying peppers to can my salsas and sauces, and then having peppers later when the tomatoes are slowing down, so I'm hopeful to not have to buy peppers next summer. The one good thing I did this year was freeze tomatoes to can later in the season so I have peppers from my garden to use with some of the tomatoes I froze. Every season I work on several new things to produce more of our own food, so this should be one of our game changers for spring and summer 2022!

Thank you for these tips! You have been an inspiration for me from day one and actually one of the people who motivated me to start my own channel - Growing Roots - pop on over, meet my plants, and leave some feedback if you have a minute!

learned something new. i did not know pepper plants were perennials. thanks for sharing.

I need to do this to my jalapeño plant!!! It wintered over but I never pruned it and the leaves were soo poor!!! Production was minimal too

So I have seen a few "over winter,peppers" vids so I will try it.

Merci pour ce partage 👍💚

Do you water the overwintering pepper? If so how much and when to water it?

I wouldn't have thought a plant would live with out any leaves at all. I appreciate you showing closely where you cut. Im in Ontario so it would have to be brought indoors. Do i keep it in dark so it sleeps (others speak about keeping them in dak) Or a window to get some sunlight? How often would you water ? Tks much.

This is interesting. I tried/currently trying to overwinter a pepper plant as a test, as I thought it would be interesting to see how it would turn out. I grew my first ones last year, they were together in a bit too small of a pot, I didn't optimally fertilize them, but I got 5 interesting looking sweet peppers (like the bell peppers, but just long and sharp like chili, I think those are called sweet paprika in English?), although a 6th one died/rotted due to insufficient calcium. Once I had taken all the peppers, the plants were clearly pretty much done, dropping leaves pretty rapidly and not growing at all, so around Christmas I just put them outside on my balcony. Didn't prune them or anything, didn't prepare them properly, and even though here in Scandinavia we had a relatively mild winter this time around, the temperatures were still going -15 Celsius below freezing. The only things I did was water the pot with warm (not hot) water only 3 times during the winter to make sure it didn't dry out, and maybe it helped that I did use some sort of moss in the soil mixture when I planted them originally (I think I put a bit more moss on the top layer too). Now some nights already remain above freezing temperatures and currently during the day it's finally above +15 Celsius, which I think I read as being a growing temperature for peppers (although night temperatures are still too low IIRC). Currently waiting to see if they would wake up. Some of the branches definitely don't feel outright dead, since they are fairly limber and not fragile (fragile ones snap easily), and it feels like these plants are still firmly rooted into the soil, so their roots could be alive (I think I can see some root like parts around the biggest one, if I try to wiggle it around and look into the soil around it). All of the 4 sort of "debarked" themselves in the cold when I initially put them outside, the top layer sort of split and sheared off, leaving the white wood like structure up. One of these plants does seem to have also developed vertical splits on the wood like part, but these happened just recently. Currently trying to figure out if I should prune the top parts now and see if they start developing from there. I kinda don't want to water them yet, since the soil is pretty damp, and it's not the cleanest one either (not moldy yet, but I think there's a mold risk). If I see signs of life, I think I would repot them, especially since I don't want to grow them again in too small of a pot. I originally grew these from seeds I personally took from store bought sweet paprikas, and those sweet paprikas were home/locally grown, so I don't know if that changes the situation, but I like to think maybe they are a bit more cold resistant thanks to that and will be able to spring back to life.

Thank you so much for the tips I’ll see if I can save any next year indoor but so far even aloe has hard time to survive indoor

I like to prune my peppers, too, not quite as hard as you did, as I'm not trying to overwinter mine yet. Waiting to see if they set fruit.

Thanks for this, I have a hybrid hot / banana pepper plant that is amazing on pizza. I am going to do some cuttings and dig it up / transplant before its frosting (Oct 3). Here's hoping!

Learning so much from your videos, thx! Question... I'm in Phx AZ and wondering if I do this, I suppose they still need watering, though much, much less... but how much less?

Oooh this is interesting. I have 2 pepper plants in my greenhouse anyway, so I will just leave them there and give them a little more protection.

Blessed to live in México, hére we have +40 Celsius in summer and our winters the lowest it gets its like 2-5 Celsius only december or january and not every year, most years are 5-10 Celsius our winters, so... We don't have that "freeze winters" that kills plants ours plants dont die and we can have in our gardens the peppers plants for several years giving fruits twice or 3 times at year. so if you ppls can overwinter the plants correctly theys can live many years...

hey, have you ever tried air pots for the peppers? if so, let me know what you think about them? i'm about to repot some birds eye chillies from the seedling tray to a 1L air pot in the coming week. also what soil mixture do you use for chillies grown in container?

Question... can you dig up chile or pepper plants from your garden in the fall, prune it back and pot it up to overwinter it? Also, what are the best varieties of peppers/chiles to overwinter?

I have one Chilliplant 5 years old.

I am going to try and over winter one pepper plant this year outside and see if i can get it to survive the winter. I have low expectations but worth a try. I am getting to old and tired to keep starting new every year. Just finished getting all my peppers in the garden a couple days ago and my back and knees are still killing me. Luckily though have many months to figure out what exactly I am going to do.

Thank you! I know what I’ll be doing this year!! Also, please tell me that is Chumbawamba T-shirt?!

Ugh. I wish I had known this in the fall. I had an amazing bed of peppers (banana, anaheim, and jalapeño) and they all did SO WELL! I hated pulling them out at the end of the season! Question: I'm in PNW zone 8b, and don't have a whole lot of room indoors to bring in my outdoor plants. Would a mini green house (shelf with plastic around it) outside on the porch work to overwinter my new plants? Maybe if I set up some grow lights in it?

I am totally going to try this!!! I am in Illinois so my pepper plants die after that first frost. I will dig up a couple and bring them in for the winter. I didn’t realize a pepper plant could produce more than one season since I always lose them when it gets cold.

omg I need that tshirt 😍

Was there ever a follow up to this like I said towards end? Would be curious to see.

Are you doing a follow up on this? How did it grow back?

good video

did you do a follow up video from this over wintering?

Has there been a follow up to this video? I'm very curious of the outcome.

Do I need to continually water my plant during winter?

Update video please!

Living in Orlando, I dont really have this issue... My tend to produce year round. with the exception for a month or so

Great advice & video, Kevin! One q: if my pepper is planted in a garden bed, would the same steps apply in place? and can I plant winter crops around it in the same bed? Or should I dig it out of the bed and transplant it to a pot? I'm in zone 10A where there is no frost date. TIA!

When shall we grow the over winter plants outdoors

I brought my scotch bonnet peppers into the basement one winter and the next summer, they fruited 20x more than in the first year. Pepper plants can survive outside as long as it doesn't get below freezing...

my carolina and scorpion dont grow up just stay at same size with a lot of leafs, its because the vase is small or i need prune all her

My bell pepper plant is 5 years old . Its stalk has turned to wood. I've never done a hard cut back like you did .maybe I'll give one branch a hard cut and see what happens. I also gave a 2 year old heirloom tomato in the same pot. Well it's not a pot it's a tire and I throw all my fruit and veggie kitchen waste in it everyday and the little rollie pollies make good soil that the plants like.

Prunes to like 2 inches tall. Only in San Diego haha. Us cold livers need to leave a bit more wood on our overwinters

Do you have to keep watering it during winter?

Tried in an unheated greenhouse in the UK. Did not survive. Will give it another go in winter 2021/22