I just thought I would share my experience over winter. I have a mature choc hab that stayed green all winter. I setup a simple area by a window that has 4 ordinary CFL lights directed at all my plants. The hab did not produce any peppers until early march.
During winter it's limbs grew longer and I managed to get three cuttings to grow. I found it very hard to get the choc hab cuttings to root but I was successful in the end.
Here is what worked for me:
Select a strong healthy 3" limb and take a sterile cutting at a node, rest it in water, prune the flowers, pods, and excess leaves, leaving only about two mid size leaves near the top. Soak a starter grow pellet and pry a hole two thirds into its middle, dip the cutting in root hormone (do not be excessive so shake off any excess powder), then place the cutting into the pellet and firm up the soil around the cutting. Try not to accidentally move the cutting once it is positioned. Spray the pellet to ensure the soil is always moist. For best results I ended up getting a little plastic greenhouse container. I spray all surfaces inside the container to make the environment moist/humid. Another trick I found to be helpful is to add a tiny bit of food to the water in the spray bottle. Since the choc hab seems to take forever to root, I occasionally spray its leaves to ensure its taking water so the cutting wont drop all leaves and die. I try not to spray the leaves too often since I want to force it to produce roots yet I want to keep it alive long enough to root. If you can shield the pellet from light that will help the roots come out. Once I see roots popping out of the sides of the pellet I then pot it into a plastic cup. Darker colored cups are better. You can buy a heatng pad to warm the soil which promotes root growth but I never had one. During the day the natural sun from the window helps warm the pots soil. A heating pad would probably be better but at least spring some cash for a greenhouse container and some starter pellets as they make the success rate much higher.
My first successful cutting has done real well. It is large now and has nearly filled its space in the plastic cup. It will be ready for a real pot soon. The other day I placed it outside with the mother for the days sunshine.
The mother plant is healthy and has been outdoors for a few weeks now. As soon as I placed it outdoors it became a victim to aphids so I thoroughly sprayed it with organic pesticide. The plant lost all its flowers but seems to be aphid free. It still has it's one single pepper growing steadily.
This morning I noticed the young hab got the aphids from the mother when I put it outside for a day. It needs water as its leaves are soft and droopy. I plan on watering it now and then when its leaves are firmer I will spray it for pests tonight and take it away from the lights for the night.
This season I have expanded my vegetables to include cherry tomatoes. I have four cherry tomatoe plants started from seed. Two are already set in their hanging baskets outside and the other two are still in the greenhouse container, nearly large enough to be set in their baskets. I am learning about hardening the tomatoe plants before going outdoors, they seem to be very sensitive to the change.
Thanks to everyone who contributes on this site. I have learned so much from you all. Hopefully I can have a better hab crop than last year. Good luck to your crops too.