I posted a while ago about how big I should let my tomato and pepper plants get before allowing them to fruit instead of pinching their flower to encourage them to grow bigger before fruiting. A lot of people mentioned just letting them decide when to fruit as they would in nature.
But this yolo wonder bell plant has a lot of buds on it, like 15+, whereas my other plant is taller and skinnier and has maybe 4. This plant is short and has lots of branches. I'm wondering if this means this particular plant will be very prolific, or if it's trying to fruit too much or too early.
Should I pinch them all to let the plant focus on growing more(mainly vertically, it's short but already bushy). Should I pinch all but a few so it focuses on just a few big fruits? Or is this plant capable of yielding all these buds?
by BalledSack
4 Comments
I would pinch every one of those. I did that with my young/small pepper plants and they shot up and had new buds so fast i couldn’t believe it. If you leave them the plant will focus all its energy on producing fruit and not making deeper roots and making the plant bigger. You want a taller, thicker stemmed healthier plant before letting it get loaded with peppers. Thats IMHO
All of my California Wonder bell peppers got to about 10 inches tall before flowering–similar to your second plant. That first plant looks weirdly short and covered in flowers. I’m not sure if I’d pinch the flowers. 15 fruits…gone. Seems like a major loss.
All my cherry bombs are flowering. I ha e to pinch daily or roots won’t develop and height is stunted. I got new grown lights this spring and they are much more effective.
I don’t pinch any. I noticed, unlike other nightshades peppers will drop a few flowers or peppers if it can’t carry them all.
You could be removing a lot for no reason at all.