I learned a few lessons this year too. If you have ripe pods on an OW plant, pick them ASAP to take stress off the plant and reduce attraction for bugs. Especially with my Choc Habs, once the pods were gone, just cut them back and water only when the container feels light. Not often. The only ones that did very well w/o a drastic cutback were my Jalapenos (3/3 survived) and my Manzanos (2/2) and both made fresh pods all winter. Those Manzanos are amazing IMO, hard to kill and aphids don't seem to like them. Not sure why the aphids stayed away from the Jalapenos, maybe because they were on the floor by my sliding basement door and that had to be the coldest spot at night. And we had our coldest overall winter in Virginia for many years. If I had to do it again, I would have cut back my Japones, Hawaiian Sweet Hot and NUMEX Big Jim. I only battled aphids on those at the end (February) and they survived, but were weak. I lost 1 of 2 White Bullets and my only Gold Bullet - all 3 were cut back and I'm convinced the 2 died from overwatering and root rot. When they are cut back, they need much less water than usual.