You've got the right idea. You can tie or weigh vertical branches down so that they will start fruiting in future years, or if it will be too much trouble doing that, or if there are too many verticals that will just shade the lower branches too much, you can just prune them off. You'll probably need to do the same thing each and every year for the life of the tree if you want to maximize fruiting wood and sunlight penetration into the lower portions of the tree. In the end, it's your tree, and it's up to you how much effort you want to put into training it and pruning it into the form that you want, because the tree doesn't know what's best for you -- the tree basically only knows how to grow either up or out in a response to maximize sunlight to all its leaves, not to the fruit or fruit buds. It is therefore up to you, and not the tree, to shape the tree any way that you want, to maximize fruiting and sunlight penetration, or whatever your goal is. Prune that puppy into shape. Or not. It's your tree and your decision. And you can take pleasure in all of it, from stick to bud to fruit to stomach.

Here's my story... I am a newly engaged electrical engineer working on his master's degree. I am also a former collegiate pole vaulter, still training and competing post-collegiately. In the rest of my spare time I downhill/freeride/dirt jump mountain bike. I wanted to start my own garden of a few peppers to eat them, but found that a hobby that does not make your heart race and adrenaline gland pump out of control is kind of nice! So I went a little further, bought a few more heat mats, a couple more lights, and a few more seeds. Now I am running out of room, and I love the new hobby! I also have always enjoyed learning, and I am doing alot of it with my first year of pepper/tom planting. It is relaxing to come home and check on the peppers and toms and see how everyone is doing each day... thats why I do it. Oh, I also LOVE spicy food and eating my own produce sounds like a rewarding way to make a meal.

I did a soil test last year - it was high in phosphorous and everything else was normal. I add compost each year and the soil is full of worms and other critters so I assume its pretty healthy. There is a drainage problem and this sounds like a likely cause of the stunted growth. There is a large depression not far from the garden that will hold water for a day or so after a long heavy rain, so my plants feet are likely wet. I'll raise them up next year. Thanks for the help.

"Many trees grow like that. Perhaps a trim here or there is OK, but it is almost always unwise to try forcing your tree into some preconceived form." I would disagree and say sometimes, not almost always. There's widespread advice out there, for example, that it's a bad idea to prune magnolias, especially deciduous ones. When I planted my Phelan Bright 11 years ago it probably had a chance of turning into something like this: http://bigtree.cnre.vt.edu/detail.cfm?AutofieldforPrimaryKey=1879 if I hadn't done the 'forbidden magnolia pruning'. Given that the progeny of such Gresham type magnolias may include X soulangeana, but also other things that look more like this: https://visit.caerhays.co.uk/UserFiles/Image/Champion_Trees/Delia_Williams_4.jpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmBfAJwgiuA I am perfectly confident that early shaping of my Gresham magnolia was the right thing to do and helped it avoid the delayed apical dominance of cutting or grafted grown asexually propagated plant material. I will do the same to the other Magnolias I have with campbellii or sargentiana in their background, like 'Atlas'.