Just found the group, reading archives, hello to all,

I have a somewhat rudementary question with regards to pinching off
leaves/branches on vegetables and such mainly with regards to things
like tomatoes and peppers.
This year we started our entire vegetable garden (60' x 300') in our
small greenhouse. While we have always had fairly large gardens in the
past this is by far the biggest and we are hoping for a good percentage
of our food needs for the year to be canned and in the root cellar this
year.
With plants like tomatoes and peppers we have always been accustomed to
buying them as starts and they always looked somewhat like a small tree
having a bare stalk (no leaves) and a canopy of leaves at the top. With
our peppers and tomatoes (all heirloom), especially the peppers, they
are VERY leafy. Looking almost shrub like. Very vigorous and extremely
healthy plants. We did buy 6 pepper starts for comparison and planted
them and while the bought peppers have the "canopy and stalk" look they
do not seem anywhere near as healthy as ours. My tendency is to pick off
a lot of the leaves on the peppers thinking it will promote putting
energy into the fruit? I am going about it on a experimental basis at
this point, which I enjoy, but was wondering how others handle it.
The peppers a
California Wonder
Serrano's
Jalepeno's
Cayanne
Giant Italians
Pepperocini's (sp)

Tomatoes:
Roma's
Italian Paste


Thanks for any general info you may be able to provide,...
Mark