Thanks for the Inspiration
 

To all those who post here about over wintering bell peppers and/or chillies, I thank you for the inspiration to have an attempt to do so. While here about 100 miles east of Melbourne, Vic, Australia, we do not the extremely low winter temps that you folks get, we get enough frosts to kill bell peppers/chillies. It was my intention to initially lift and pot up a sample of what I had growing last season but time got away from me and we were looking at frost conditions with plants still in the ground. A quick construction job with some PVC tubing and an old tarp thrown over the plants as needed saw 14 out of 18 survive the winter, most of which now have small fruit on them, leading to plans for a more permanent system of maintaining these plants year round.

Thanks again

Woz

I've been pretty successful with covering plants. It doesn't take much - a bed sheet will do. So long as the cover is light the plants will support it without a frame. Besides keeping off the frost, the cover holds in the heat from the ground and that keeps the plant warm enough even if the air temperature outside the cover drops considerably below freezing. Worst case the leaves in contact with the cover will get bit.

But everything depends on the weather. If you get a real cold snap where the ground temperature drops to freezing, then no amount of passive covering will suffice. Fortunately, you can run power out to the covered plants and slip a small light bulb in with them. The heat will keep them warm and toasty.

I did not know that pepper plants could survive more than one year. That is news to me.

Yes. Peppers are perennial, but are not cold hardy.