Bed prep

[hdan]

Where did they spend the winter? I've overwintered pepper plants the last 2 years, but I didn't really cut them back and I put them under lights during the winter and gave them water every week or so. I don't think it's likely that you can overwinter a bell pepper type plant because they have been so bred so far away from their wild ancestors which are perennials. Hots, I've found, are a different story. Treating them like houseplants when indoors seems to keep them alive and even flourishing.

I don't think you need to throw your soil out though; you might want to amend it a little with some compost or fertile addition, but I don't see any reason to toss it.

Ok, thanks I will reuse the potting soil.
I was thinking the same thing, keeping them at room temp may be the trick. I kept mine in garage over winter which normally doesn’t get below 50°. We had a very unusual cold snap this past winter that cause temperture below 50° in garage. I think that could have something to do with it. Now if you were keeping yours at room temperture and giving it water over winter, it probably never went dormant. I did prune mine branches back just above where the bottom Y's branch out just above the nodes.
Don't know if that had anything to do with it or not. I did plant more bell peppers this year thinking something could go wrong with the over winter peppers. I have 6 plants of the California wonder coming up now about 4" tall now. I like this variety better than last year anyway. Last year I had the mini small bell peppers, & lots of them.

 

[flowerbug]

yes, they (pepper plants) are a plant that needs some warmth to survive so anything close to freezing is not going to help them out, plus they need to be watered once in a while. they pretty much need to be treated like a house plant IMO.

the soil in the pots can be used in the compost heap or the gardens, i wouldn't ever throw away used potting soil here because it has organic stuff in it that will eventually get broken down further and turned into plant food or end up as humus (which happens to be a very complex and large group of molecules and pretty resistent to being broken down further).