Bringing Pots Indoors - Eliminating Insects

I think that this topic was raised last year but I can’t find it.

I am going to try to keep some of my peppers and tomatoes going over the winter. I have them in root pouches.

Peppers do not have to be treated as perennial plants and a two year old plant will produce much more than a first year seedling.

I also have a terrific indeterminate tomato (label lost) that I want to overwinter.

What I DON’T want is to import all the buggies that must have taken up residence since the spring. Is there anything sensible that I can do to the plants and the soil that they are in to “debug” them.

Thanx
Mike

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My biggest pest was those dang fungus gnats when I brought in my pepper last year. Be sure to put lots of perlite in your soil, so it drains quickly. Fungus gnats love wet soil. Before you bring your pepper in, I’d drench it with neem or insecticidal soap a few days in a row to get rid of aphids.

I was wondering what others do about this, too. If I recall correctly, @Drew51 uses H2O2 for fungus gnats. Then there are spider mites which showed up last year. I’m thinking of using Pyganic foliar before bringing in the citrus and ginger.

I dust my plants with DE and that seems to eliminate the aphids and other crawly insects

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What you do with your pepper plant to overwinter it depends on what results you are trying to get out of it.
Do you want to get peppers from it all winter or do you just want to keep it alive so you can set it out again in the spring?

How come the recent frost didn’t kill your tomato? The only one I have with much life is against a western stone wall wall- a Sungold. Of course, all of mine had various stages of early blight even before the frost.

The lakes have kept any frosts away from here. My tomatoes are still producing. As far as overwintering I have had the most problems with aphids. I like using oil, but if not applied a few times they will come back. For fungus gnats, peroxide or you could try mosquito dunks kept in you watering can which adds bacteria that eat gnat larve.

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I googled: granular insecticide for indoor potted plants and here you go:
https://www.amazon.com/Bonide-Product-951-Systemic-Control/dp/B000BX1HKI

Dax

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@thepodpiper

Both. I am setting up a 4 x 4 foot “light Box” enclosure with reflective coating on the inside and will be lighting it up with three sets of LED shoplights I already have ( 4000k ) in addition to whatever sunlight hits through the open side.

I hope and expect to get some peppers and tomatoes but even if all I do is keep these alive till next year I will be happy.

It is as much an experiment as anything else.

Mike

@alan

These are at my home in Nassau County. No freeze yet :slight_smile:

Mike

@Barkslip

Dax

This version of imidacloprid is for houseplants.

I wonder what the PHI for veggies. I will look it up

Mike

Nice to have a garden in the banana belt.

My pepper had fungus gnats last year when I brought it indoors. I tried BTI, I tried H2O2, I tried insecticidal soap. In the end, the only thing that completely eliminated them was reporting, with half potting soil and half perlite. Make sure your soil is light.

Diatomaceous earth for organic pesticide use

Mosquito dunks work well tip control fungus gnats indoors. Google it for specific instructions.

Also it’s easy to take cuttings from those plants. No need too bring dirt inside.

Mike,

My mistake. Thanks for reporting my error. Right from the label of Bonide 951 “This product is for use on containerized plants (except edible plants.)”

Dax

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@TheDerek

My main aim is the experiment of trying to take a TWOyear old pepper plant into next spring/summer.

The expectation is that an older plant will give much higher yields. After all, here in the Northeast the pepper spends a huge part of the season just getting up to speed and then winter swats it away.

Mike

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I brought my jalapeno plant inside also. Cut it back severely and sprayed roots off about 2 weeks ago. Starting to recover now…

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Jays peach scorpion from cutting doing well also…

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