I bought a habanero pepper plant. it’s doing great, but I live in Michigan and winter gets pretty cold.
I read that you can, with luck, move it inside for the winter and replant it the next spring.
I have two cats and we have no plants in our house right now. I’m sure they could learn to ignore it, but is it poisonous to them? Is there a danger?
It’s not poisonous. If they nibble on the peppers it will repel them, but they should stop that as soon as they try it (or maybe as soon as they smell it). Capsaicin isn’t really a toxin, just an irritant.
One of our cats loves the smell of peppers. But even she stays away from eating them. No problem with bringing it indoors.
Capsaicin mostly causes pain, not damage. And even that’s only if the cat actually eats it, which a cat wouldn’t have much incentive to do in the first place.
the plants themselves are (IIRC) unpalatable, but not toxic. The actual “danger fluid” which makes hot peppers hot is in the “placental” ribs from which the seeds grow. I have a couple jalapeno and habanero plants out front; when I cut a pepper open there are beads of hatred sitting on those ribs.
Thanks, guys. I’m going to try it. It wasn’t expensive and I could always buy a new one next year, but I like the challenge of trying to keep it through winter.