Just a thought.... If they were in containers then you could bring them in at nights if there is a danger of frost and take back out the next day for sunbathing.

I seem to recall reading a thread of yours where you had like 300 seeds germinated and growing under lights inside your house... maybe you could use those lights and grow peppers inside during winter (along side next years germinating seeds)?

2 months is roughly 60 days until frost, and 60 days is not nearly enough time to go from seedling to harvestable peppers. I agree that containers will be your bet because you can bring them in.

Joe

i vote for DWC bucket indoor! :)

they are not really seedlings anymore,they are 8 or 9" tall already, and have many sets of leaves, and the lights inside are not really strong enough to do more than germinate, and it was 2 trays of 72 for a total of 144 of which I transplanted 50 or so plants but out of the last 32 I started I repotted 18, which was my 5th germination of seeds this year, however the are about 6weeks old already which is 40-45 days now add 60 days to that, and I should be able to get @ least a few pods before frost especially from the annuums, I am not too worried, even if I dont get ripe pods, i could always overwintered if I feel like it i do plan to over winter @ least a dozen or so of my favorites, but I do have @ least a few seeds of all of the plants Im growing so no great loss, but instead of just getting my feet wet on my first year growing, I dove in, I am trying several different combinations of soils, fertilizers, germinating methods and sunlight exposures, to find what works best for everythng I can, I have annuums, chinense, baccatums, frutescens, and pubescens in the ground and in pots, some of those pots have soil and compost mixtures, some in soil and bark, w/ different levels, of perlite, vermiculite and different groups using different fert levels, this fifth round of plants, consisting of 18 more transplants well hardened off and having been repotted twice and are now in 1 1/2 gal pots, I merely was looking for anyone elses input as to their experience as to which they thought would grow faster. I have approached this first year as a large science project, and though I am compiling lots of data on what works best, the experiment is still going so I am open to any advice availible!

You may get some ripe pods but not many and with temps even in the 30's and 40's, they will slow their growth considerably. It took about two months for my plants to put out their first ripe pods after I quit snipping blooms. It doesn't even sound like yours are blooming right now. Containers so you can keep 'em warm at night.
Bruce

Maybe it's just me, but, my stuff in the garden always does better than in pots. Grows faster, bigger, more production, etc.. So, from that perspective, in the ground.

But, you are running up against a timeline where a couple of cold nights can really hurt you, so, containers would be better because you can move them inside for the night.

Of course, you are in a different region with different soil than me, so YMMV.

Another vote for containers here.

I actually pulled a runt Chocolate Hab out of the ground so that I can extend the season in
a container and hopefully get a few pods.

Josh

In the ground will give you your best chance for quick upward growth but leaving them in containers will give you a better chance for ripe pods(bringing them inside on cold nights). I seem to have better control of the NPK in containers. There is no question though of the 100's of grow logs I have read. The guys who plant in the ground have much larger plants. I think you should do a lil of each. It can't hurt.

Yes, I have three plants in the ground (sort of) and they are my 3 Bhuts. Two of them have grown monstrous and are still growing and putting out a lot of pods. My others are in containers and also growing nicely but not nearly as big and fast as the Bhuts. It is kind of an unfair comparison because I dont have like plants in each location but even though the Bhuts are huge and putting out a ton of pods, they took a longer time to get ripe than my other plants. And since this is really my first year growing, I dont have much else to go on.

Ground or pot also might be decision based on where you live and want to handle your wintering. Here in So. Florida, we have all of our bhuts in pots because the soil is so sandy (alot of effort to re-work) and we can pull the plants inside during bad storms or the colder winter days ... although we only have a few freezing nights a year, so not too bad. But if this is your first winter, you might want to do a mix of pot and ground to see which yields better results in your location. If course, we'll hope for a warm fall!

here in nc we arent quite as lucky as u in florida, but we dont often get temps in the 40's @ night before mid to late november, and again out of my 160 plants the ground and container split is roughly 50/50 + or - a few and so either way I will have a bit of each, but I have a few pots so I will probably fill what i and put the rest in the newly refreshed leftover space in the fall garden
paul

Containers for sure here in zone 5a. My container peppers are several weeks ahead of my peppers in sandy soil with compost. I think the main difference is soil temperature, as my pots are black. I may try black plastic to warm the soil next year to see if I can speed them up. With tomatoes, there's no difference. I think peppers like warmer soil.