No yard? That’s fine, because hot peppers grow well indoors, and a pepper plant covered in red, orange or purple pods looks as good on a windowsill as it tastes on a plate. Peppers are perennials in the tropics where they come from, so indoors, where frost can’t reach them, a healthy plant can keep going for more than one season.
What does it take? Plenty of light, steady warmth, a decent pot and a little help with pollination, since you’ll be standing in for the wind and the bees. Here’s how to get each one right, which peppers suit indoor growing best, and how to bring your outdoor plants in for the winter.
Which peppers grow best indoors?
Compact plants are the easiest, and ornamental peppers were made for this: they stay small, they fruit heavily, and their pods stand up above the leaves where you can see them. The Hot Pops Yellow grows only about 5 inches tall, the Medusa and Little Elf top out around a foot, and the Black Pearl adds dark leaves to the mix. All of them are edible, though many ornamentals pack real heat, and our ornamental peppers guide covers more than 30 of them by heat and size.
For cooking, pick a chili with small pods and a manageable plant, such as Thai peppers, cayenne or chile de árbol. Want mild? The Tangerine Dream and Chilly Chili bring the color with almost no heat. Big-podded peppers like bells and poblanos can grow inside, too, but they need more pot, more light and more patience to fruit.
How much light do indoor peppers need?
More than most homes can give them. Light is the biggest difference between indoor and outdoor peppers, and it’s the one most likely to hold your plants back. A bright, south-facing window can keep a plant alive. But if you want flowers and fruit, you’ll need a grow light, especially in winter, when the days are short and the sun stays low.
Run the light for 14 to 16 hours a day on a simple outlet timer, and give the plants 8 to 10 hours of darkness each night. Hang the light as close as the manufacturer suggests for that fixture, and raise it as the plant grows. If your plant gets tall and spindly, with lots of space between its leaves, it needs more light.
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What temperature do peppers need indoors?
Peppers like the same temperatures most people do. They set fruit best between 65 and 80°F, and very little fruit sets when days run over 90°F or nights drop below 60°F, so most homes fall right in the sweet spot.
The trouble spots are near the glass. A windowsill that’s sunny at noon can turn cold at night in winter. So move plants back from the window after dark if it gets chilly, and keep them away from drafts, heat vents and radiators. Starting from seed? A seedling heat mat helps, and our guide to growing hot peppers from seed walks you through it.
Choosing a pot and potting mix
A 5-gallon pot gives a full-size pepper plant room to grow, and compact ornamentals do fine in smaller pots. Whatever you use, it needs drainage holes, with a saucer underneath to protect your floor. Our guide to growing hot peppers in containers goes deeper on pot sizes and materials.
Fill it with a light, well-draining potting mix instead of soil dug from the garden. Garden soil packs down in a pot, and it can carry pests and disease into your house. If roots start circling the bottom of the pot or poking out of the drainage holes, the plant’s root bound, and it’s time to move up a size.
Watering and feeding indoor peppers
Water when the top inch of soil feels dry, and water until a little runs out the bottom. Then empty the saucer, because peppers don’t like standing in water. Indoor pots dry out more slowly than outdoor ones, so check with your finger instead of watering on a schedule. Our posts on watering pepper plants and overwatering cover the warning signs.
Feed with a balanced, water-soluble fertilizer, but go easy. Too much nitrogen gives you a lush, leafy plant with few peppers. Our guide to fertilizing pepper plants covers what to use and when.
How to pollinate indoor peppers
Outdoors, this takes care of itself. Peppers are self-pollinating, and a breeze or a visiting bee is all it takes to move pollen around inside each flower. But indoors, the air’s still and the bees are outside, so flowers can drop off before they set fruit.
The fix is easy: once the plant’s in flower, give it a gentle shake every day or two, or touch the inside of each open flower with a small, soft paintbrush, moving from flower to flower. A small fan running nearby helps, too. Do your flowers still fall off? Check the temperature, since nights below 60°F or days over 90°F can stop fruit from setting.
Watch for pests
Indoor peppers dodge a lot of garden pests, but not all of them. Aphids and spider mites are the usual suspects, and spider mites love the warm, dry air of a heated house. Check the undersides of the leaves every week or so, since that’s where both like to hide, and you’ll catch a problem while it’s small. And if your plants spent the summer outside, inspect them closely before you bring them in.
Bringing outdoor peppers inside for winter
Don’t let the first frost take your best plant. Frost will kill a pepper plant, but you can dig it up or bring its pot inside before the first cold night and keep it going. University gardening experts lay out two ways to do it, depending on what you want.
- For peppers all winter: keep the plant warm, with nights above 50°F and days around 70°F, put it under a grow light, and hand-pollinate the flowers. Hot peppers handle this better than sweet ones.
- To keep the plant for spring: trim it back, keep it in a cool spot and water sparingly, so it rests. In spring, move it back to warmth and light, and when nights warm up, it can go back outside with a head start on the season.
Harvesting indoor peppers
Indoor peppers ripen the same way outdoor ones do, from green to their final color, whether that’s red, orange, yellow or purple. Cut them off with scissors or pruners instead of pulling, since pepper branches snap easily, and pick ripe pods promptly to keep the plant producing. If a plant is struggling, our guides to yellowing leaves, curling leaves and slow growth can help you figure out why.
Are indoor pepper plants safe around kids and pets?
Treat them with care, since the ASPCA lists the ornamental pepper as toxic to dogs and cats, and any hot pepper can give a curious child a painful surprise. If you’ve got pets or little ones, keep the plants out of reach, and lean toward mild varieties like the Tangerine Dream or Chilly Chili. If someone does get a mouthful, our guide to treating chili burn can help.
Will indoor peppers be as hot as outdoor ones?
Each variety has its own heat range, and an indoor habanero is still a habanero. Growing conditions move a pepper around within that range, though, so your indoor crop may land a little higher or lower than the same pepper grown outside. Our tips on growing hotter peppers cover what you can control.
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Related reading
- Small Peppers Guide: Tiny Delivers Big: Little chilies, many of them compact plants that suit a pot.
- 12 Common Pepper Plant Diseases And Pepper Problems: What’s wrong with your plant, and how to fix it.
- Saving Pepper Seeds: What You Need To Know: Keep seeds from your best plant to grow again next year.
I think my chilli plant has fungi growing on the roots. How do I get rid of this? Will the chillis still be okay to eat?