so pepper guy, this is my first season hence this will be a regurgitated response. i've been told that peppers can tolerate low temps temporarily. with that said, i'm not sure it includes frost. it's late so applying excessive mulch to keep your plants feet warm may not be convenient at this time. so my thinking is why not throw some sort of covering; sheet, blanket, etc until the sun comes up to warm them up. as per fruit; too much rain/moisture can make your fruit develop a sort of corking look and if overexposed, they can actually split. for now, a quick covering may buy you the time you need. hope this helps.

I'm not entirely sure, but I just raided my plants the other night just in case. Unfortunately, we got frost this weekend. In my mind, it would seem that you would want to pull your peppers before a heavy frost. The plant will die and it seems to me that would probably have and adverse effect on the fruit. Just my thoughts, I could be wrong.

never seen a pepper plant make it through a true frost without losing its peppers and most leaves, good luck

The only real winter danger here is frost. i have multi year plants that survive these mild frosts (no lower than 26 and only for 3-4 consecutive days) by being covered with multiple blankets. There is still some extremity damage. I've had some uncovered get killed to the ground, but the roots sprout in the spring.

As to fruit, yes they will be damaged, no different than freezing a pepper, gets a bit soft. Better to pick 'em if there is a heavy frost coming or a light one you can't cover.

If you forget to pick them and they get frost damage you can still use them the next day for processing. Just not crispy for fresh use like for salads, but no problem for sauces, fine chopped salas, cooking, freezing. Not sure about drying though.

If you had a hard frost then odds are your peppers froze at some point. noisebeam is right, they'll be soft... if you've frozen peppers in your freezer before you'll know what we mean.

Bill

I've picked heavily before predicted frosts and had many of the peppers ripen in the house off the plants. It didn't seem to affect the taste greatly.

Recently, I saw someone suggested cutting the plants and bringing them inside and putting the stem in water. Although the plant wilted, they said the peppers ripened well. This was a new idea to me, and I may try this next year...this years plants are goners....it was kinda early for a severe freeze but I got most everything I wanted inside in time.

Sorry I have not posted again, I have been very busy with my final harvest plus had a few other things going on. I went ahead and covered the peppers up for about 4 nights. I have since picked all the peppers even if they were green and put them in paper bags to ripen. So far so good. I am getting overwhelmed with peppers.

I went ahead and bought a a chest freezer to fit all the peppers.

I will post some pics of the final harvest, once I get all that are going to ripen.

Thanks for all the replies.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Pepper Guy's Blog

"I went ahead and bought a a chest freezer to fit all the peppers"

LOL!!!!! A true Pepper Head!

I wish my harvest warranted a new freezer. I've currently got 3 totaling 40 cu ft but only 2 cu ft are dedicated to peppers.

If I wore a hat I'd take it off to you ;-))

Bill

I have found that the pepper plants will go through the first few frosts. Finally the freeze pretty much kills off the plant and freezes the peppers.

BUT AND THIS IS IMPORTANT.

I have ALWAYS found that the frozen peppers can be picked and thaw out just fine the first freeze. However, if you let them freeze a 2nd time they get soft. But I would say 99% of the first time frozen peppers will be just fine with no problems at all.

I say this about chile peppers. But Jalapeno freeze fine and thaw out fine. and they are moist and thick. Serrano freeze OK also.

the first good frost which kills off the leaves but will leave the peppers OK. But once the leaves are gone the plant can not get energy to the pepper so there will be very little growth. The next frost the plant does not have the protection of the leaves and will freeze too hard and become soft.

You can still make hot sauce with soft peppers. just get them into the vinegar and run the blender food processor to mush it all up into hot sauce.

If you have to harvest a real lot of hot peppers in a rush because you are worried about a freeze then chop off the entire plant at ground level and put on the ground in the garage or a big room in the house. They will last a couple of weeks and you can pick peppers off the plants for the next two weeks.

Somewhat related. Typical temps right now are 90 daytime, 60 night. Peppers do fine (but a bit too cool at night for the most sensitive ones to set fruit)

Anyway the forecast is a very unusual arctic cold front hitting Wed and Thurs. There will be two days of 38-40 at night (58-65 day). That is a 20deg temp drop from normal.

Most of my fruits are not ripe and still growing in size, especially the bhuts, habs, etc.

Should I worry about this temporary cold front - will it stop growth permanently? Temps are expected to be back to normal by the weekend. Past years they have ripened just before the first frost normally hits in late Dec.

Thanks!