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Post by brownrexx on May 15, 2021 7:46:04 GMT -5
Sometimes when you purchase a tomato or pepper seedling or you keep your home grown ones in the pot a little too long, they develop a flower or flowers.
Do you break off these flowers before planting the seedlings in your garden?
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Post by brownrexx on May 15, 2021 7:48:00 GMT -5
I feel like I should break them off but usually I can't bring myself to do it.
I have a flower of one of my 13 tomato plants that I planted yesterday and I left it in place.
21 pepper seedlings will get planted today and I think that most of them are flowering. I will probably leave them in place too.
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Post by september on May 15, 2021 8:23:40 GMT -5
I don't remove any flowers. My reasoning is the plant keeps growing roots, side branches and producing flowers and fruit all at the same time all season. As long as it's in fertile ground with abundant nutrition, I let the plant decide what it's ready for. I've noticed that a few of these early flowers may drop off by themselves anyway, in my location probably because we continue to have cold snaps early in the season.
It's sort of the same problem I have with the idea of topping tomatoes at the end of the season. Some think that the extra nutrition might go to ripening what fruit you have, but the plant doesn't just stop growing because you want it to, it puts out as many new green baby suckers as quickly as it can all over the plant to continue vegetative growth as long it has resources.
With my short season, I value earliness over any possible long term productivity, so removing those blossoms might set me back 2 weeks waiting for the next set.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 15, 2021 11:20:06 GMT -5
I have never understood "topping" tomatoes for that reason, september. Any time anything happens to the top of a tomato plant in my garden, and it suckers like mad. Pinch the suckers and more appear! I guess if you have been keeping your tomato plants pinched to a single stem all season, and you're diligent about pinching suckers, it could work. But it seems to me that you would be better off letting the leaves grow at the end of the season (more leaves = more photosynthesis = more nutrition) and pinching off new flowers and baby fruit as they form. Now, as to peppers, I will often pinch early pepper blooms on large-fruited peppers like bells until the plant is at least 12" tall. Bell and other large, heavy peppers will set fruit long before the plant is big enough and strong enough to support them. And by "support them" I mean both that the little plants don't have enough stem/branch strength and that little plants don't have enough leaves to develop big, thick-walled fruits. Also, letting a little bell pepper plant set its first flowers means the first fruits are often touching the ground, so they are more likely to rot. I can't say I have noticed any improvement from pinching blooms on small-fruited peppers such as jalapenos. I let them do what they want. But I can absolutely understand that in a short growing season like you have, earliness is vital for peppers! If I lived where you did, I would not pinch any pepper blooms, either. I am the same way about tomatoes, ironically, because the summer heat shuts down tomatoes' fruit set. That's why I let the suckers go on my tomatoes and have bushy, messy plants - I have to get as many blooms to set as possible early in the season, because that's all I am going to get!
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 15, 2021 12:52:34 GMT -5
I’ve heard it’s best to pinch them off, but I’ve never done that. This is step by step what I do when planting tomatoes. I dig a hole as deep as my sharpshooter. The next step involves fertilization. I lay a tarp down and mix dirt and compost together. Sometimes I use Mumsy’s Mix and sometimes I just use Tomato/Garden Tone from a bag. I throw a handful of fertilizer in the hole. Next, I start filling the hole and mixing a little dirt/compost mixture with the fertilizer. I take my tomato plant and tap it out of the container. I loosen the roots with my fingers while removing the lower branches/leaves so I can plant as deep as possible. Place plant into hole and start filling. Water it well. I generally use about a gallon per plant. If I have mulch, I place it around the plant, but NOT close to the stem.
Every two weeks, I fertilize with tomato tone and water it in good.
That’s it in a nut shell.
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Post by paulf on May 15, 2021 13:32:09 GMT -5
The reasoning behind removing tomato buds is to encourage root growth. Does that actually happen? Danged if I know whether a tomato plant can multi-task. Some even remove the first flowers after planting out in the garden. I will clip buds if the seedlings are still in the basement but as soon as they are outside they are free to do whatever they want. I figure if the plant thinks it is time to reproduce, who am I to say no.
Peppers can do whatever, whenever. Our pepper season is too short to discourage any growth. Only mid and short season peppers will produce and ripen here. Long season peppers only give greenies and then only a few.
As for topping any plant, I have never and will never do it or advocate for it. I emphasize with my tomatoes and peppers...how would I feel if a few of my arms were chopped off. Those leaves and branches are useful in providing energy to the rest of the plant. It isn't like getting a haircut since that is for looks only and several of my friends don't have any left and they seem to do OK without it.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 15, 2021 16:01:23 GMT -5
I did an experiment years ago, when peppers would frequently stay in longer than they should, due to the cold weather (this year was nothing, compared to the weather years ago!), and some varieties would get countless buds on them. They would either need to be re-potted, though I really didn't want to bother with that, or I'd pinch off the buds. I pinched all of the buds off one plant, of the Superchili variety, and left the others on the plant, and there were a few very small peppers on that plant. The plant the buds were plucked from, once planted outside, started growing quickly, though it also started flowering some. The other, that I didn't take any flowers from, barely grew, and got even more, dwarfed peppers on the plant.
From then on, I made sure to pluck the buds from peppers, when this would start happening. It only seldom happens on tomatoes - this year, those 42 day tomatoes had some buds, so I plucked them from one, and left them on the other. They don't seem much different, so far, with both growing, plus another variety developed buds which opened just before the 42 day, though it had no buds inside, before planting. So I probably won't bother with this, the few times it happens with tomatoes, but I'll definitely keep doing it with peppers.
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Post by brownrexx on May 15, 2021 20:39:25 GMT -5
I guess that I will find out because I noticed that my peppers still in their pots all have flowers and I am not planning to pinch them off. Laura_in_FL, my plants are at least 12" tall since they were kept in their pots so long due to the cold weather. No problem with developing bell peppers pulling those plants over. Jalapeno is the only hot pepper I am growing. All of the rest are green, red and orange bells as well as a few frying type peppers. The Cherokee Purple tomato that I planted yesterday has opened it's bud and today I noticed a pretty yellow flower. We'll see if it's my first ripe tomato.
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Post by paquebot on May 15, 2021 21:25:24 GMT -5
Not going to get involved in pro or con about topping or removing laterals on tomato plants. There are cases for both ways depending on varieties and types.
Since question was pro or con for removing flowers, I will say that I have never seen those pre-planting flowers ever produce a fruit on tomatoes. Those were always aborted. But, I have had peppers keep those flowers and that first fruit may be so low on the plant that it touches the ground. One of the plants set out a couple days ago has a flower. I left it.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by brownrexx on May 16, 2021 9:09:30 GMT -5
I do top some of my tomato plants late in the season, not to encourage ripening of fruits but to prevent toppling of my 5' high tomato cages. The indeterminate plants grow way out the tops and then the vines droop over the sides of the cages and create a real mess and sometimes cause the entire cages to tip over.
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Post by paulf on May 16, 2021 11:33:50 GMT -5
I do top some of my tomato plants late in the season, not to encourage ripening of fruits but to prevent toppling of my 5' high tomato cages. The indeterminate plants grow way out the tops and then the vines droop over the sides of the cages and create a real mess and sometimes cause the entire cages to tip over. Not trying to change your mind, but when I had the tipping over problem with my cages, this is what I came up with for a solution. In the photo if you look closely I have put two electric fence posts on either side of the cages. Then wired them to the main cage. I got the posts at a local farm store, but big box stores have them also. The cost is about a dollar per stake and they will last forever. A few years back we had a storm with tornadic winds go over the property. We lost seven full sized trees but not one tomato cage with full grown tomato plants inside was toppled over. I keep the plants inside the cages and as they grow the plants will fountain over the top. My cages are concrete reinforcing wire with openings large enough to reach inside and fruit grows on the outside as well on the overtopping vines. I know that doesn't address the topping preference (I still never top but that is saying I am right or wrong), but might help with the tipping over problem. the electric posts are three feet tall and reddish brown and I use them as markers for other crops, see the seed packets in the foreground. The posts have a triangular gusset attached at the bottom for stability in the soil.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 16, 2021 11:51:25 GMT -5
That makes perfect sense, brownrexx. It's better to have a truncated plant than have it topple the cage over and lose the whole thing.
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Post by brownrexx on May 16, 2021 12:03:46 GMT -5
In the photo if you look closely I have put two electric fence posts on either side of the cages. I actually started doing that too with metal stakes and zip ties but I still do not like the "fountaining over" that the plants do when they grow out of the tops of the cages. It does not happen on every plant but the Brandywine are notorious for doing this.
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Post by paquebot on May 16, 2021 12:14:37 GMT -5
Tomato plants are not climbers and a natural plant will top at barely 4' without support. Prior to cages being introduced, tomatoes were planted as much as 6; apart and allowed to sprawl, usually over straw. That's the method that I grew up with.
If allowed to grow naturally, an indeterminate plant will produce 3 to 5 laterals. Those will extend out 4' to 5'. That means that the plant is programmed to produce up to 20' or more of growth. Remove the laterals and all of that energy goes into a main stem. And then wonder why the plant is 8' high and still reaching for more!
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by brownrexx on May 24, 2021 8:13:58 GMT -5
The Cherokee Purple tomato that I planted yesterday has opened it's bud and today I noticed a pretty yellow flower. We'll see if it's my first ripe tomato. I was away for 3 days and came home yesterday and discovered 2 teeny weeny tomatoes on that Cherokee Purple plant. Some of the other plants are starting to flower but I still think that this may be my first ripe tomato. Usually it is Jersey Boy to ripen first other than Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes.
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Post by octave1 on May 24, 2021 16:49:31 GMT -5
My tomatoes, almost all of them, grow unpruned and way more than 4'. One year, in 2012 during the hottest and driest summer on record, they grew to be over 12' tall. Cages could no longer contain those plants, and branches--including the main stem, "fountained" over and continued to grow upright again from the point each branch hit the ground. It was unbelievable, and this is why we use serious stakes to anchor the cages to the ground since.
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Post by brownrexx on Jun 20, 2021 14:01:10 GMT -5
21 pepper seedlings will get planted today and I think that most of them are flowering. I will probably leave them in place too. Update - I did leave the flowers in place and planted those pepper plants on May 15. Nice peppers developed but I felt that they were too heavy for the size of the plants and I removed most of them yesterday so I got a nice early pepper harvest. I am making stuffed peppers tonight and will probably use some of them to make chicken quesadillas tomorrow. I also have chicken shish-ka-bobs in mind for some of them. Early Peppers 2021 by Brownrexx, on Flickr
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Post by paquebot on Jun 20, 2021 15:49:29 GMT -5
Hot tip: Use cheap tomato cages for peppers. They will never become too top-heavy when caged.
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by brownrexx on Jun 21, 2021 8:55:25 GMT -5
Hot tip: Use cheap tomato cages for peppers. They will never become too top-heavy when caged. I keep meaning to give these a try. Now would probably be a good time to look for them on sale.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Jun 21, 2021 9:21:48 GMT -5
I used those cheap tomato cages that when I grew peppers in-ground. They do work well for peppers grown in-ground or in raised beds. And they stack well at the end of the season, which is nice.
But in Earthboxes they tend to tip one way or the other, so I had to change cages.
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