This is the way chili's in their native environments want to grow. I picked up some seed of a very hot chili growing in the central Mexican state of Querétaro while visiting last summer---the mother plant was about 5 feet tall, essentially a woody shrub covered with dozens of these 2" long atomic chili peppers

I have one growing in a pot in a bright window that will be out-planted to the garden in the spring. The question is:

The plant is a single stem about 24" tall right now, it just started to branch at about the 2 foot size. It is clearly more leggy than it should be since I am growing it indoors in the winter. Now I know its common to pinch smaller plants back when they are young, in this case the plant is now 24" high. When I out-plant this in the spring can I just behead this thing leaving a 10-12" woody stem and hope it starts to branch out anew from the leaf nodes?