A one gallon pot is small and probably inhibiting your plants production. Three gallon is typically the smallest you'd want to go with.

Then again, I have a few non-Tabasco plants still in 3 inch starter pots that are putting out loads of flowers/pods.

If I had to bet, I'd say a combination of small pot and bad genes. You may want to but up feeding and start a new Tabasco plant next year.

I forgot to add a link to a BBC article I read this morning on how pot size affects plants.

Scientific proof that size does matter ;-))

Here is a link that might be useful: BBC

In my garden, Tabasco grows very slowly and blooms/fruit very late - October.
By then, the pods don't have time to ripen. The first two years I grew Tabasco from a seedpack;
this year, I'm growing seed from Jaime, since I know that his plants grow very well. But if
the Tabasco still doesn't perform, I'm not going to try growing it anymore.

Josh

I never tried overwintering a tabasco, but, my experience was the same....very few ripened, and the ones that did would rot fairly quickly after picking. So, I gave up on them.

Basically the parrots grow it in special soil. Roof litter.
;-)~

Here is a link that might be useful:

I don't think pot size is the culprit since I grew tobascos indoors last winter in a 6" pot. They were slow, planted in late September and they just started to turn red by early April, when I had to harvest them to make way for spring bedding plants. I recall the flowers as being more of an off-white or pale white/yellowy-green. Obligatory pics (taken in February):

BTW, tobascos are much hotter than I was expecting. They seem to have 2 or 3 times the heat of Thai or cayenne chilis I find in the stores here. First one I picked I popped in my mouth whole and chewed it up -- that left me suffering for awhile.

what type of flavor do they have?

The ones I grew inside were mostly green when I picked them and they don't actually taste very good at that stage -- dry and rather harsh-tasting. The green ones are best used to dice up and add some heat to a dish, as they are very hot. The ones that ripened (turned fully red) had a much sweeter and more pleasant taste. They also get very juicy when they ripen, completely different than their rather dry green stage, and far juicier than any other type of pepper I have seen. That juicy ripeness probably also means they wouldn't dry or keep very well when ripe, so they would need to be used, processed or frozen fairly soon after picking I would think.

Zone 8? May be a combination of small pot and excessive heat, especially in the root zone.

I had a situation this year where I had too many pots for my normal placement, and put several pots on top of a concrete retaining wall. The plants there did not do well, likely because roots were too warm, especially at night. The chilis there put out much less foliage and fruit then the containers that were on wooden steps that didn't hold so much heat. Moving them to a cooler area has caused them to flourish again. I'm only at Zone 5a. In your zone, I suspect you have to be that much more careful of heat, especially in small containers where heats builds up much quickly.

Ottawapepper: interesting article, however I'd like to make one point, that they may not have accounted for. I almost always investigate roots when I am transplanting, or disposing, since I think that is more important than anything that happens above ground. More then likely they used a peat dominant soil, since they didn't describe the soil they used, and peat based soils are the most common. This is the root pattern I've seen over and over in peat soils. It is my "belief" it is due to plants looking for air at the edge of the containers, not water or nutrients. Reason I say that, is that I've also examined roots of plants in 5:1:1, and found roots spread evenly through the soil, rarely circling the container in a highly aerated soil. You can have the same plants, one in peat, which appears rootbound, and the other in a bark based soil which is not rootbound. I've seen this too many times in my own side by sides both in seedlings and larger containers to not believe it is true, and a major reason I prefer a bark based soil.

I agree with Capo about the rooting patterns observed in the 5-1-1.

Don, you are right about the heat of Tabasco...much hotter than I expected,
having only tasted the sauce prior to trying the fresh pods. That explosion
of perfumed, floral juice in the Tabasco made me gag actually, probably because
I wasn't prepared for it. However, that flavor and that juiciness makes for a perfect
saucing pepper.

Josh

Very valid point Capoman, you are right, they don't mention the growing medium.

I actually want to retract my statement size does matter. I was at friends market farm yesterday and their pepper plants put mine to shame. Their out of country help was delayed in arriving so they were just potting up their peppers from 3 inch starter pots. Every damn plant had loads of pods that will ripen soon. The plants were started in a peat based medium and doing great. My plants put out loads of well distributed roots in ProMix BX... I too inspect the roots of each plant when I'm cleaning up in the late fall.