Boring Preamble: I usually wind up with a pepper plant in my garage over the winter because frost comes and I still have green peppers. The first time I did it, in the spring I took the pot out and cut down the plant and the stem was wet and green and I thought to myself "that was stupid, I should just have put this back outside". The next year the one I brought inside didn't get enough water and had aphids and probably spider mites and all the leaves fell off, so I cut it down. Then GoDawgs told me in this thread (post #11) aphids-under-the-lights-t3173.html I should have just cut it back and kept it.

Boring Main Part of Thread:

Usually I cut all my plants down in the fall and cover over the planters (I've got almost everything in planters), but this year didn't work out that way; I mostly just cut the tops off. We've had a mild winter here in NJ so far, except for a couple of polar vortex/bomb cyclone nights where it was 7 and then 4°F. Today it was about 50 and I had a little time so I was pruning back some plants and realized the peppers were pretty green inside and maybe I should leave them in case they are still alive, although part of my brain was saying that they can't survive 4 degrees. So I stopped cutting the peppers and moved on to some tomato plants...and some of them had some green inside, too.

So I'm confused, I've always gone on the presumption that winter temps are going to kill peppers and tomatoes, and of course my situation is even worse because I'm sure the planters (soil) get colder than if the plants were in the ground. Am I crazy to think that any of these peppers and tomatoes could survive outside over the winter? I have had (other kinds of) plants in planters that I expected to live that died, and ones that I expected to die, live, so I can sort of believe the peppers could survive, doubtful on the tomatoes.

What say you forum members?

I over winter my green bells. I rarely get freezing temps, but close. I have to cut them way back to get decent results but still not as good as new starts.