Dave is certainly giving you the correct answer, however....................I find that I can usually get away with just leaving them out there. It does depend on several things, the health/strength of the seedlings, the amount of sun, the amount of wind and the temperature range that is happening. I put all of my broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and lettuce out on my screened in back porch and just left them there. They are about 4 weeks along, strong and healthy plants. They have been out there for three days and are very happy. Temperatures have been high 60's dropping down to high 30's at night, with light rain. They get a few hours a day of dappled sun (when it is out) I will plant them in their beds this weekend. If its sunny I may use shade cloth for a few days. I am in WI - we wont have 90 degree weather for a couple of months.(i hope)

From the Colorado Dahlia Society website: "Disbudding is not essential to grow dahlias with fine blooms. In fact, if a dahlia plant is not disbudded it will produce many more blossoms than a plant that is disbudded. Disbudding, in addition to topping, is done in order to produce larger and fuller blossoms. Disbudding directs most of the energy saved, by removing some buds, to the remaining bud causing it to grow larger in diameter and in depth. Disbudding does not affect the form or color of the blooms.

Hello again Lynne, Snowed in in OKC, (2-3") and just came in from potting up more tomato and pepper seedlings in the garage. First a couple of photos of this year's pinched seedlings. I started seed for these on Dec. 20th. the winter solstice. This one is a Sungold variety, If you look closely at the "V" where the side branches grow off the main stem, you will see the suckers have formed all along the main stem, even on the cotyledon leaves. This one is a Betterboy variety and you can see the same along with the new terminal tip just above where it was pinched. Both of these plants were pinched 4 weeks ago. These and others will be potted up deeply into the 4" pots and will be set out in the garden as soon as the weather allows in the next month. Last year was the first time I went all in and pinched all of my indeterminate seedlings and was also the first time I had a couple of transplants with buds on them already. I also followed Dr. Sam Cotner's advice from The Vegetable Book a Texan's Guide to Gardening and only set transplants in about 2" deep. Before I had always planted transplants several inches deep. Here are a couple of photos from last year. This one was taken on June 4th, about 9-10 weeks after transplanting. The white tops of the T-posts are at about 5' high. This one was taken on June 22nd and is a coworker. As you can see the plants have grown into a tomato hedge and are 7' tall, they continued to grow taller then across the tops of each other. Pinching will set your seedlings back about 3-4 weeks and keeping them cool, about 50 degrees if possible will help keep them from getting leggy. While my experiment is by no means scientific, it has made a believer out of me. Last year I took sacks of tomatoes to work every couple of days, gave them to friends and family and had so many for us that they went bad on the kitchen table before we could eat them. If you decide to pinch, I suggest you only pinch a few of each variety you grow and mark them on a map of your garden where they are planted. Also this is for only indeterminate (vining varieties) not determinate (bush varieties). If bush varieties are pinched they will produce less, at best, and might not produce at all. Best of gardening luck to you! Keith

Rick: Thank you so much for all your input. Since I have no identification on the first group of three (from mixed seed), I am not going to pinch those. I'm going to leave them alone and let them grow naturally. I agree my "Roger Five" are still too small to pinch. Since they are all the same variety and I have 5 of them, they will be perfect for experimenting various techniques. A few questions: - At what age or when how many leaves have formed can I begin pinching? 6 leaves? do I remove the top 4 leaves or just the top 2? - At what age can I cut off the taproot? 2 yrs old? Before? After? Stuart: Thank you, as well. It appears you're growing your seedlings in direct zone 11 sun. Is this correct? Have you ever had an issue with the trunk/ caudex sunburning? Does pinching always result in branching? Or do you experience branching only sometimes. Thanks, everyone for your input. I know I'm looking for precision concrete answers and there is no such thing in nature. Plants do what they do and look beautiful doing it. Still, I'd like to (and would love to help others) get the best results possible with minimal loss during this learning experience. Peace & grace to all.