Indoor peppers?

[Greg]

I was wondering, if I planted a jalepeno plant or 2, do you think I could get them to grow indoors? I have skylights and other plants seem to do well in that room. What do ya think? Fresh peppers off the plant all year would be pretty cool!!

[Petee]

If you are bringing one in from outdoors you may have better luck but raising it from a seed to fruiting age indoors would probably be very demanding.  Their need for sunlight and heat is pretty high.  Bugs would be another problem.  They always appear from somewhere and like tender foliage.

 

How about one of the more ornamental peppers?  They are even sold as houseplants.

 

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-20238222.html

[lavender]

Can it be done? Sure! Is it worth it? Probably not.

To fruit, peppers need 6-8 hours of bright sunlight. Just coming through glass lessens the amount of light a plant gets and the further it is removed from the glass decreases again the amount of light it receives. As the season goes into fall and winter the days get shorter and less light is available. The intensity of the light is also less. You would probably need supplemental lighting placed within inches of the plant for good results. You are going to have to fool that plant into thinking it is spring going into summer.

If you are going to try it find a pepper that has the shortest growing season. Hot peppers will probably work better than sweet ones and the smaller the pepper the better.

If you are comfortable in the room heatwise the pepper will be fine. They don't need temperatures much above 70 degrees to fruit.

Some peppers are self pollinating but some aren't. You might have to move the pollen onto stigma manually to get fruit.

You won't get nearly the fruit that you get outside and it probably won't get very big. That is one reason I said find small peppers. Less frustration.

Most of those pepper plants that you find around Christmas time in pots are fully edible. Black Pearl is a beauty even if you never get any fruit. But it is supposedly hot, hot, hot!