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Weather is dropping to 50 degrees F (10 degrees C)—should I harvest all my peppers now?

Its starting to get colder here, and its predicted to stay around this temperature. Do I need to pluck my peppers now? What about unripened and immature ones?

Do I need to bonsai-ify my plants and bring them in? What does everyone else do? Save seeds and plant next year?
 
i`m in southwestern ct. and same temps here. not getting out of the 50`s during the day and 30`s and 40`s at night. there was no chance for growth so i harvested all but the smallest pods yesterday. i`m freezing/drying/pickling everything today. i don`t have a place to overwinter plants but i wish i could. yes i saved some seeds. 
 
Last year, i was picking ripe pods right up until first Frost. On the day after first Frost, i checked my plants out. All the leaves were wilted and like sauteed-looking, and like 99% of the pods had clearly frozen then that's, do they were soggy and smooshy. But, somehow, a couple of the pods were interest, do i salvaged those.

This year, i plan on doing a few comprehensive harvests each day up until the night of the anticipated first Friday, which is supposed to be November 12 in my area, i believe.

I am going to try to overwinter one plant this year. It's a Habanero Naranja that i grew in a metal Cafe Bustelo can. Everything else I've grown is in raised beds, do I'll just compare their corpses and start fresh from seed in 2019.
 
I bring my highest priority plants in first, aka "didn't produce this year and used up all my seeds" or rare in general. Then I chance it and leave the rest out well past first frost date until it actually gets that low. Then the day it's supposed to get that cool, I'll dig up any second-tier picks for overwinter and leave the rest to fend for themselves. They go in compost once they start to brown a little. I may also take cuttings somewhere between it getting cold and first frost.
 
I was going to be posting basically this same question.  We already had 2 frosts (in Chicago area) and it's WAAAY too early :( :(  I  covered my plants (brought my prized Fatalli in tho, but it's just losing leaves like a mad man :().  Originally the weather was supposed to only be in the 40's this week so I was hoping to get another week for the pods to ripen but that now has changed, at least 2 more frosts (tonite and tomorrow) are forecasted.
 
is it better to pull the unripe pods (or even the whole plant out of the ground???) now or try to keep them from freezing (which I really detest doing) by covering or?
 
years past my plants were all done by the time we started getting frosts so this is a new one for me.  :(
 
I transplanted the ones I wanted to keep into pots and brought them inside, so up to you what you want to keep for next year, otherwise pick the fruit, you dont want them to freeze.
 
Ruid said:
Since pepper plants can pollinate themselves, does that make them transplants?
 
 
That's the "Politically Correct" version of a question.....

 
 
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dragonsfire said:
I transplanted the ones I wanted to keep into pots and brought them inside, so up to you what you want to keep for next year, otherwise pick the fruit, you dont want them to freeze.
unfortunately I don't have room to store a bunch of plants :(  I pulled up a bunch of the ones in the ground and have them hanging upside down in my garage and basement room.  The others in pots I'll just keep covering for a while.  This is pretty early for us to get this many frosts :(  Argh.  
 
Hopefully the ones upside down will ripen ok and I didn't pull them out for nothing...
 
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