thanks for the personal note... here is what i replied: mums are the best example of pinching ... if never p'd ... you get one flower on one scape.. and the thing falls over when it blooms... so ... when it gets about 6 inches tall ... you pinch the single.. and get at least 2 new scapes ... when those get another 6 inches .... you pinch again.. and at least double the number of scapes ... and double the structure ... when all those get another 6 inches.. you do it again... again doubling the structure .... mums only flower once.. in fall.. so you keep pinching.. until you have a nice mound.. and stop to give it enough time to set bud and flower ... zinna will basically do the same ... straight up.. one flower.. fall over ... then side shoots will occur ... by pinching back early ... you double the stems.. and the structure... and the resultant show ... but you stop much earlier because it is a summer flowering plant ... if you cut your flowers to bring them in the house to enjoy .. guess what.. another system of pinching.. resulting in more stems... and more flowers .... make any better sense??? ken

Larry, I agree with ScottOkiemanthat it is not even close to being too late to start peppers. Some years I start tomatoes and peppers together and some years I start the peppers a couple of weeks later, but either way, I don't transplant peppers into the ground until the soil and air temperatures are very warm. Tomatoes can tolerate cooler soil and temperatures down into the 30s, although I don't like to put them out into the ground when it is that cool. Peppers exposed to colder temps will sit and stall and sulk and often remain nonproductive for most if not all of the growing season. The later I transplant my peppers (within reason) the better they produce. Last year I started my peppers at the same time I started my tomatoes, but didn't put my peppers into the ground until early May and yet I harvested just over 10 lbs. of peppers on June 15th. That doesn't seem possible, but it happened, and I kind of think the very warm temps in May 2010 pushed the plants to produce quickly after they were transplanted because it was much warmer here at our house than it is most Mays. Mostly I harvested hot peppers early, but also a couple of lbs. were sweets. Pepper plants that are started indoors and kept warm and then are well-hardened off before going into the ground once temps are very warm just take off like a rocket and start blooming and producing right away. I've also noticed that habanero peppers give me a harvest 4 weeks earlier if never exposed to cold soil or air. Our greenhouse isn't finished yet, but once it is, I can move plants out to it earlier than I do now and leave them there. Right now the tomato plants go outside into the sun/wind for part of each day as a part of the hardening off process and then come back inside onto the sunporch before temps drop in the evening. If it is going to be really chilly, I bring them back into the house. I plant my tomatoes when the air and soil are right for them, but have to cover them up on an occasional cold night because we're in such a low-lying area near the Red River that we often have freezing temps at night the first week in May, about a month after folks on higher ground a couple of miles from us will have had their last freezing nights. I used to transplant tomatoes earlier than I do now, but it is tedious to cover up 100+ plants. Experimenting is fun, and that's when you really learn what you can get away with in your soil and your climate! We are having some exceptionally warm days here already, the fruit trees are blooming, we have butterflies, bees and yellow jackets all over the place and the early spring wildflowers are blooming. However, the nights are still cold. Our nights are hard to predict and the NWS often misses our overnight low by a mile. For last night/this morning, our low was forecast to be 39 and right now it is 30 degrees on the thermometer on our front porch. I never trust the forecast here! If I believed the forecast, I'd lose my tomato plants every year. My first round of tomato plants are large enough now that I could put them in the ground, but they won't go into the ground for about a month yet at the earliest, and perhaps much later than that. It all depends on what the temperatures are doing. By contrast, my pepper plants are about an inch tall, and I am not the least bit worried about how small they are because we are a really long way from soil and air temps being warm enough for them. Dawn

There's always a huge debate as to whether or not buds and blossoms should be taken off before planting outside. Some remove most of them and leave just a few to get some tomatoes earlier. If I want earlier fruits I plant earlier varieties. But once a plant goes into the reproductive cycle of blossom formation and fruit set the energy of the plant is directed more to that process than maturation of the plant itself. And for that reason I take off all buds and blossoms as they appear and before planting out. Orange Minsk is a variety I got quite a few years ago from Andrey in Belarus from whom I get some wonderful varieties every year. He got this variety at a farmer's market in Minsk, where he lives, and so named it Orange Minsk. The full history can be found at Tania's wonderful online tomato base. I wasn't the only one he shared seeds for this variety with but I was the first to list it in the SSE YEarbook thus making it more available and I did send seeds of it to several seed sites for trial, as I do every year to those sites where I've known the owners for many years, thus making it even more available to the public at large. So enjoy it. Carolyn

I usually only pot up once before they get planted in the ground. I start them in the Jiffy pellets or six cell starting trays, then about 3-4 weeks, repot them to small styrofoam cups with holes poked in the bottom. They have a few sets of true leaves when I do this. By this time, they are usually ready to spend a fair amount of time outdoors, and I ween them off artificial light. I set them out during the day and bring them inside the garage at night if it's supposed to get below 50. They live very happily in those styrofoam cups until I'm ready to plant. However, I do keep a close eye on the water situation once they get some size to them. Actually, I just bought cups and potting soil yesterday. I plan on repotting about 50 or so today. I started them from seed on April 1st(and a few as late as April 5) and hope to get them in the ground by the first or second week in May. I usually try to get stuff planted around Mother's day. I was worried I was getting a late start on starting my seeds this year, but they are growing very rapidly and I shouldn't have any problems staying on schedule this year.