I bought a bunch of tomato and pepper plants yesterday, and some of them have flowers and/or fruit on them already. I asked the people at the stores if I should pinch them off when planting in order to put more energy toward root-building, and three different people said I didn't have to. I'd LOVE for this to be true, but I could swear I heard somewhere that you are supposed to pinch off the flowers and fruit when you plant. Can anyone enlighten me once and for all?
--S.
There are many practices passed around between gardeners. Most are given the recommendation of being age-old. Some are useful and some are not. Some work in some situations but not in others. For a pursuit that seems to be built on a large collection of "rules" there are many exceptions. It looks simple but it isn't.
I have never bothered with this pinching out of fruits and flowers and my transplants work just fine. This is not conclusive because it is possible that if I did it they would do even better. I couldn't be bothered going to the trouble of testing it as I work on the concept that if it ain't broke don't fix it. My feeling is that having your transplants in the right situation at the right time in well prepared soil (or not) is likely to swamp any effect of pinching (or not).
For those who claim that this practice is important please show your evidence, note that some kind of comparison is required, saying that you do it and it works for you isn't conclusive either.
David
With tomatoes I only take out blooms and foliage 2/3 up from the roots and bury that 2/3's of the plant. I have a lot less watering to do because of the deep roots. My peppers are always in bloom when planted, but planted at the same level they were growing in the bed. We've been eating both for a while now. :-)
Tom J North of Atlanta
I planted a Stupice with 3 small fruit on it in late April. Stupice is supposed to get to be 4' to 6' tall. Mine presently is 4' and growing, and we had our first tomato last saturday. Two more should be ready by this week-end. If I'd pinched them off, I'd still be waiting for my first tomato. Oh, it had tomato flavor without the store-bought acidity that my sweety doesn't like.
Two days of 90°F and the garden is rockin'. The peppers put on 2"-4" in height, the summer squash all expanded by about a foot, and the melon has started cranking out flowers.
A parsnip from last year, that was overlooked, due to a rampaging raccoon, who also took out the majority of the carrots, is 5 feet tall,
1 foot shorter than my tallest sunflower. Is this normal? Is there any chance that the parsnip is still edible? I'm presuming that it's past its "best used by" date and I'm waiting to see its floral side.
It's pretty big, mostly they are about 3-4ft tall at flowering here. OTOH sunflowers can reach 8ft
Is
It will be big and probably too tough to eat boiled as a vegetable but some grated will flavour a stew or soup.
I'm presuming that
The flower is not spectacular but the seed heads are interesting with many "winged" seeds. Leaving a few parsnips to seed is good because it is a plant whose seed doesn't stay viable very long so the fresh self-sown seeds are often a better bet than those saved for years. The volunteers you don't want are easy to pull out when small.
David
I double checked this afternoon, and the parsnip is at least 5'6" (1.7M). The sunflower is at least 6'6" (1.98M) and towering over the potatoes at 5' (1.5M).
I think I'll wait for its florescence. The other parsnips That have survived are in the 3'-4' range, maybe 7 in total.
Thank you.
:-)) Well Peter Cundall always says to treat tomatoes badly so they think they are going to die and thus flower early. I assume his reasoning for that is to get crops from them. Whatever Pete says is good enough for me as his advice has always been woth following so I'd never think of deflowering at planting.
LOL
But isn't deflowering considered one of the rites of spring ...along with the maypole, Beltane blazes ...and ...and (whispering) Morris dancing.
When I was seventeen It was a very good year It was a very good year for small town girls And soft summer nights We'd hide from the lights On the village green When I was seventeen
D
Peter Cundall is now in his 80s so I think his days of deflowering would be behind him. But when it comes to gardening advice, he's always been worth listening to.
If you pinch off the flowers the plant will grower larger but will yield fruit later (total yield will be greater)
If you leave the flowers the energy will go toward making the fruit, the plant will be smaller, the overall yield will be less, but you will get earlier fruit.
basically if you have more tomato plants then you really need, don't cut off the flowers, your yield will be lower but who cares
you can prove this to yourself by pinching one plant and not the other, that is what I did, the pinched plant will be much larger then the other, try it.
speaking of experiments I also did the "plant the tomato plant really really deep method" and one not, there was no difference in yield, the really deep one grew roots mostly just near the top of the stem, not all along the stem.
you can prove this to yourself by planing one deep and the other shallow, at the end of the season carfully remove them and look at the root mass
to really increase yields you need to have very large plants set out early, there is no other method that makes much difference, at least that I know of, various fertilizers don't make much difference
You may be correct in areas with shallow soil, but I have a loam soil that is about 14 inches deep. The tomatoes planted deep in that soil require 1/2 the watering as those plated to the level they came out of the greenhouse and produce way more tomatoes. They do have roots all along the stem that was below ground as well as the original roots. Compacted soil will force all roots to near the surface. Just my experience over the years in going from all red Georgia clay to the current loam.
BTW, my lawn with the deep loam soil stays green during the heat of summer when most lawns in this area trun brown and suffer from the need of water. The neighbors call it "the grass". We have water restrictions!! ;-( Tom J
my soil is over 2 feet deep, I never water though, heavy mulch, guess the afternoon summer rains never make it down far enough
Hi Suzanne,
If you ask 3 different experts, you'll get 3 different answers. Why? They give advise based on their experience, and this exp is a case to case basis when it comes to gardening, it only gives you only an idea of what might be the result when you follow someone's advise. And that might not be the same result as you do. So basically, it guides you through the process, but doesn't success guaranteed.
So I would suggest to implement a trial and error system. At the end, herb gardening requires a little risk.
I planted a Stupice with 3 small green tomatoes on it, next to a Stupice with no fruit or flowers (both germinated at the same time, and put out to harden off together). The Stupice without flowers is 25% larger now than the one that was setting fruit, but it still has no flowers, whereas, the other Stupice has given me 3 tomatoes and is covered with flowers.
YMMV
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