I usually keep my peppers going for several years, as it makes for a nice treat in April when I start getting fruit on mature plants. This winter was really cold -- temps down to the low 20s. Peppers simply don't survive those temps, but I took some care to cover them and insulate them. I lost all of my 3-year old banana peppers, and I thought I lost about half of my 2-year old TAM Jalapenos. Half were raggedy green, and half were, well, brown sticks. I pulled the bananas, but left all the TAMs, including the brown sticks. Holy moley. Now that it's warming up, there are green buds coming out of all the TAMs. Including the brown sticks.They're coming back strongly.

The lesson, I think, is when peppers have been overcooled, don't give up on them completely, especially if some barely survived. They can look completely dead, but still have something going in them. Maybe I should have left those bananas.

I think another lesson is that the TAMs are somewhat more cold resistant than the bananas. They were under the same cover.