I want to try growing peppers in-doors in 12 inch pots. I have a South facing window in my basement. How many hours of supplemental lighting in the winter do I need? Any suggestions on what kinds of compact pepper plants to try? Are smaller fruiting varities easier to grow indoors. I have seen dragon tears peppers in the forums - anybody know where I can get some of this seed? Thanks for any advice....
In the winter, you're going to need to give the plants between 10 and 12 hours of light for them to be really happy, but other than that indoor peppers are fairly easy to deal with. I'd actually start with whatever pepper you like best (so long as that's not Bhut Jolokia, which are notoriously difficult to grow) - the fact of its living in a pot will automatically reduce the plant size to mirror the rootspace available. You can actually bonsai pepper plants if you're so inclined! Jalapenos are a good starter pepper if you've never grown peppers before, as are Cayenne and Hungarian Wax. Bells are a bit more difficult indoors. The Capsicum baccatum types (you mentioned Dragon's Tears - those are Ecuadorian peppers and it was quite possibly me who was talking about them) are a little harder to get ahold of, but you will sometimes see them advertized as "ornamental" peppers in catalogues. What distinguishes Dragon's Tears is a round fruit shape and fruits that start out white and ripen through purple to orange and red; they are fiercely spicy. I'm currently out of seeds (and my 10-year old plant has passed on, sadly), or I'd send you some myself. C. baccatum are longer-period peppers than the standard C. annuum that are common in North America; they often require a year or more of growing before they'll even start flowering, let alone setting fruit. However, they're very rewarding plants. Best of luck!
Thanks for the reply. I will keep an eye out for dragon tears now that I know the Latin name. What type and wattage light are you using for your peppers?
Hi, I can help answer a couple of your questions. I usually give my indoor peppers at least 12, but ideally 16 hours of light per day. I try to keep this as consistent as possible by turning the lamp on/off at the same times. Also, I've had great luck with habaneros as a compact plant. Good luck with your chillies!
OK, to answer your last question, I'm not all that rich, and hence I'm inventive. I no longer grow peppers indoors (I moved from northern Canada to tropical Ecuador), but when I did I used to use Ikea drawing lamps (the ones on extender arms) and full-spectrum compact fluorescents at about 18 W (100W equivalents.) If you're really serious about indoor growing, though, you'd probably be better off investing in an HPA system - a quick search of the indoor plants forum should turn up a wealth of information about that from folks far more knowledgable than I.
