overwintering Too late to prune/overwinter in late January?

Hi, I took my 4 large Chilli plants indoors in November (we have cold winters in the UK), planning to prune them down for overwintering when they withered and dropped leaves (that's what normally happens). But as of Jan 30th they've stayed healthy and keep producing flowers despite no feeding for around 2 months! It looks like they won't naturally die back so would it be too severe a shock for them if I pruned them back now, hoping they'll sprout back well in a few months and be strong enough to produce good fruit?
 
The main one I want to keep has long branches and not many small sprouts on the stem so wouldn't leave much when the ends of the branches are cut off. Also, they have pretty bad greenfly on, which I'm worried will hinder the few remaining leaves.

good to know,
 
i brought mine in about the same time and harvested the last chili's in December. was planning on cutting back but just left them in the window.  been having a little die off now but have been worried about doing more harm than good, maybe i'll give it a try

twenty said:

good to know,
 
i brought mine in about the same time and harvested the last chili's in December. was planning on cutting back but just left them in the window.  been having a little die off now but have been worried about doing more harm than good, maybe i'll give it a try

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I would recommend it, the plants are a lot healthier this year now. They sprouted lots of new leaves and are easier to manage without giant branches hanging everywhere. They are flowering early too!

The_Birdman said:

I would recommend it, the plants are a lot healthier this year now. They sprouted lots of new leaves and are easier to manage without giant branches hanging everywhere. They are flowering early too!

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funny that you responded recently, i didn't do it but  i have just been staring at the plants trying to decide whether to go ahead now or not.  did you trim the roots back too?  i'm thinking about doing the big trim, top and bottom.  they're currently in 10G pots at the back sliding door, with lots of new growth down low and still a good amount up top but if i want to get them under the lights, they'll need to be in much smaller pots.
 
glad to hear about your success, think i'll be getting into it this weekend.  should still give  me  a couple months under the HID to completely recover before summer here
 
thanks

twenty said:

[media]https://i.imgur.com/DQRPYwj.jpg[/media]funny that you responded recently, i didn't do it but  i have just been staring at the plants trying to decide whether to go ahead now or not.  did you trim the roots back too?  i'm thinking about doing the big trim, top and bottom.  they're currently in 10G pots at the back sliding door, with lots of new growth down low and still a good amount up top but if i want to get them under the lights, they'll need to be in much smaller pots.
 
glad to hear about your success, think i'll be getting into it this weekend.  should still give  me  a couple months under the HID to completely recover before summer here
 
thanks

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It's the first year I've done it, but the four plants I did (2 Apache, 2 Cayenne) are WAY better for it and they are easier to position safely/tidily. No I wasn't confident enough to trim the roots, so can't say if that is a good idea (they are already in quite big 25cm pots). I was so scared about cutting it down but the plant looks much happier with the new shoots and flower buds. Within a few weeks of doing it I'd decided to be way more strict with trimming down all of my new plants as they grow, possibly a couple of times a year. I left at least 2 branch nodes on each branch after the main fork split on the stem (and made sure there were enough leaves left for it to have some photosynthesis capability) but next time might try a bit more - one of the Cayenne's new shoots has almost reached troublesome length in the last few weeks of growth. I suppose tactical pruning is a whole science in itself, I'm looking forward to learning more about it!
 
Interested to hear how you get on. I'll add a pic of mine later if I don't forget.
 
Update: here's my 1-year-old Apache.