Hi Dancinglemons! Hope you are well. I wouldn't force anything g to bloom unless you know what you are doing. This is what I have learned and applied by a reusable member here named Tapla, Al. When individual nutrients are available in excess, it not only unnecessarily contributes to the total volume of solutes in the soil solution, which makes it more difficult for the plant to absorb water and nutrients, it can also create an antagonistic deficiency of other nutrients as toxicity levels block a plant's ability to take them up. E.g., too much Fe (iron) can cause a Mn (manganese) deficiency, with the converse also true, Too much Ca (calcium) can cause a Mg (magnesium) deficiency. Too much P (phosphorous) can cause an insoluble precipitate with Fe and make Fe unavailable. It also interferes with the uptake of several other micro-nutrients. You can see why it is advantageous to supply nutrients in as close to the same ratio in which plants use them and at levels not so high that they interfere with water uptake. I know I'm repeating myself here, but this is an important point. What about the high-P "Bloom Booster" fertilizers you might ask? To induce more prolific flowering, a reduced N supply will have more and better effect than the high P bloom formulas. When N is reduced, it slows vegetative growth without reducing photosynthesis. Since vegetative growth is limited by a lack of N, and the photosynthetic machinery continues to turn out food, it leaves an expendable surplus for the plant to spend on flowers and fruit. Plants use about 6 times more N than P, so fertilizers that supply more P than N are wasteful and more likely to inhibit blooms (remember that too much P inhibits uptake of Fe and many micro-nutrients - it raises pH unnecessarily as well, which could also be problematic). Popular "bloom-booster" fertilizers like 10-52-10 actually supply about 32x more P than your plant could ever use (in relationship to how much N it uses) and has the potential to wreak all kinds of havoc with your plants. In a recent conversation with the CEO of Dyna-Gro, he confirmed my long held belief that circumstances would have to be very highly unusual for it to be ever beneficial to use a fertilizer in containers that supplies as much or more P than either N or K. This means that even commonly found 1:1:1 ratios like 20-20-20 or 14-14-14 supply more P than is necessary for best results. The fact that different species of plants grow in different types of soil where they are naturally found, does not mean that one needs more of a certain nutrient than the other. It just means that the plants have developed strategies to adapt to certain conditions, like excesses and deficiencies of particular nutrients. Your plants should give you blossoms as it matures unless it was started by seed or not on a good rootstock. If it was taken as a cutting from a mature plant or a mature flowering plant was grafted onto root stock, it should flower. Good luck MIke

Trini, OMG, I hate to say it, but yes, I would force it to abort the bloom. My instinct says "Nooo", but your plant needs its energy to root. (Sniff-sniff...) I'd snip the whole peduncle off, in spite of the fact that they re-bloom from the same peduncle. This will prevent it from trying to rebloom Put your cutting, pot and all, in a very humid environment, like a terrarium or a fish tank. That will help this time of year. Denise in Omaha

Hi MusicSub - Well, I wouldn't say I abandoned it, no and I hadn't heard there is a new square foot gardening method. I'll have to check it out. I still grow in raised beds and plant fairly close together, but I don't mark out each square foot or pay that much attention to the distance. I'm still paying more attention to other projects, I guess. This year, I planted in the spring, kept it mulched and watered and barely paid any attention to the vegetable garden at all. It made a difference, I was not as successful with the garden this year. I've had trouble with tree roots invading my veggie beds and I just didn't have time to dig them all out before I got started. It was discouraging. Speaking of peppers and having no fruit on the plants. I planted Carmen peppers this year. I grew them in the backyard where there is 6hrs of sun and the front yard where there is full sun. I've always planted them in the back and produced peppers by the end of the season. This year the plants in the front grew much larger than those in the back. I'd say double the size. Strangely, same variety of pepper, 3ft apart, in same amount of sun, same amount of fertilizer and water. One Carmen pepper was covered with peppers and nothing on the other one, all season. Plenty of flowers and bees too. I just noticed there are a few tiny peppers on that plant finally, but the other plant has a lot more and already picked a couple of red ones. The Carmen pepper is a nice elongated pepper and they really produced. I'd say that they have a thin wall though. I really like a juicy Bell pepper and I haven't found one I like yet. I have about a half dozen still left in the back that are almost all red. And a dozen green peppers in the front right now. Sungold tomato - grew it in the back in 6hrs of sun and full sun in the front. What a difference. The plant in the front is probably triple the size of the one in the back. Pushing out tomatoes to beat the band. Shared them all summer and had more than enough for us. It was our earliest tomato too. I just brought in 5 dinner plates full of ripe tomatoes this morning from one plant. Pretty good for doing very little to the plant all summer. Weekly, half strength Neptune fertilizer and that was about it.

Your zone is very different from ours so I don't know how to answer that question. I won't use a bloom booster except as I described above to get blooms during a rare summer cold front. The reason is that our weather is so hot in the summer that the plants stop setting fruit. In fact, at our house this week, in just a couple of days, we move into that danger zone of temperatures in the mid-90s. Hopefully we won't stay there. I'd hate to think the tomato plants have already set all the fruit they are going to set this spring/summer. If your tomato plants are blooming and your daytime highs are staying below around 92-95 and your nighttime lows are staying below 70-72, you shouldn't need a bloom booster. Your plants should bloom naturally and should set fruit. I haven't used a bloom booster in years because even though our summers routinely are very hot, I usually don't need a bloom booster unless we are in prolonged drought, and we haven't had prolonged summer drought at our house since 2015, which is extremely rare. If your tomato plants are blooming and not setting fruit, perhaps your nights still are too cold (below 55 degrees). Or, if you are having normal weather and fruit should be setting in the temperatures you have but it is not, then perhaps there is a lack of wind to shake up the flowers. Tomatoes have perfect blossoms and the flowers need some movement in order for the pollen to fall from the anthers inside the flower to the stigma, also inside the flower, to achieve pollination and fertilization. If your air is very still or if wind movement is blocked by something like a building, your plants may need some help moving. There are various ways to do this. The traditional one is to thump the flower blossoms. If you have a lot of plants and they are caged, you can just walk along a row of cages giving each cage a gentle shake as you pass by. Or, if you have a tennis racket....walk along the row of plants with your tennis racket in your hand. Give each tomato cage a good whack as you walk by. That will cause the plants and their flowers to move and the pollen to move around inside the flowers. You can use a bloom booster whenever you want, but don't overdo it. Too much can cause too much fruit set and then the plant has more fruit than it can carry to maturity.