You can cut the flowers off at an angle with bypass shears (in the pruning section of a hardware store or gardening center), you can wait for the flowers to fall, or you can slip the flower off the day after if it hasn't already fallen on it's own. You can save the seeds if you want to. If you cut the flower off, you will not get seeds. The little green part left behind once the flower drops is the ovum where the seeds will form. Take off the little tiny leaves around it, tie netting around it and you can save the seeds! (you can hybridize this way as well if you rub the pollen from another color of flower to another stigma - just keep the seeds and you can plant a whole new hybrid in a few months time!)

Dave I understand your analogy and your position that plants of the size I mentioned are beyond the stage at which they should be transplanted into their final growing place, and from my experience I don't doubt that plants would perform better in a longer season if they had been initially transplanted as smaller plants; my big transplants are pretty pooped out by the end of the season (if season was longer, I don't think they would last much longer), while their younger siblings tend to look better and fuller and like they would have a longer healthier lifespan than the bigger transplants had (but though healthier and fuller, the have also produced fewer and later fruits, as mentioned). Is there somewhere I could find more information what effects growth/what is the ideal stage at which to set out? I don't know if it makes a difference up here, if proper transplanting and setting out would still result in later, fewer fruits. Regarding transplanting in general, when I changed up a few things last year I seemed to have poorer root development than prior years. Plants still grew pretty large and produced ok given the weather conditions (maybe excess precipitation acutally helped bring more nutrients to the smaller root systems this summer). I was told by some people here last year that root growth could be improved by allowing plants to become somewhat (or more than somewhat) rootbound in smaller pots before potting up...may explain better performance in other years when I procrastinated before potting up. Did some research and came across the below link among other things. Not sure how old or accurate it is, but the article discusses root development, and seems to indicate the possibility that the more times a plant is transplanted, the less fruit it produces, due in part to damaging effects of translanting on the roots. Besides direct sowing, or planting seeds in 6-inch pots (instead of starters then cells then larger pots) I don't see a practical way to plant in a manner that would avoid all transplanting...and probably tough to plant one or a few seeds per 6-inch pot and have enough room/pots to set up for germination. Ignoring the transplant size issue, any comments on what this article says about transplanting and root development (and applicability to a non-commercial garden, if any)? http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137ch26.html

Dave, when you say you wouldn't do it with this particular plant, can you elaborate on why you feel that way? I mean I wouldn't because it is a tiny little plant to begin with. It's a dwarf. And it is in a container. So its productive life is already limited by its size and its container. Removing blooms at its current size just reduces its possible production. On the other hand if I am planting 8-10" tall determinates or indeterminates in the garden and they have blooms I will pinch the blooms off as I want the plant to focus on growth not setting fruit. At that size they aren't even an 1/8th their anticipated size at maturity so there is no way they have either the root structure or the leaves to support fruit set yet. So if your TT was 4-6" tall with only a few leaves, sure I'd remove the blooms but not now at the size and development it shows in the photo. OK? Dave

OK, well several online sources kept saying to remove the males to prevent bitterness. I actually did a first weak fertilizing tonight. They haven't been short of water and the greenhouse gets plenty of light. No visible pest issues. The plants otherwise look healthy other than the lower 1-2 leaves starting to yellow a bit. Hope the female flowers show soon!