"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
Suzanne D. wrote:
I bought a bunch of tomato and pepper plants yesterday, and some of
them have flowers and/or fruit on them already. I asked the people
at the stores if I should pinch them off when planting in order to
put more energy toward root-building, and three different people said
I didn't have to. I'd LOVE for this to be true, but I could swear I
heard somewhere that you are supposed to pinch off the flowers and
fruit when you plant. Can anyone enlighten me once and for all?
--S.

I have never bothered with this pinching out of fruits and flowers and my
transplants work just fine. This is not conclusive because it is possible
that if I did it they would do even better.

:-)) Well Peter Cundall always says to treat tomatoes badly so they think
they are going to die and thus flower early. I assume his reasoning for
that is to get crops from them. Whatever Pete says is good enough for me as
his advice has always been woth following so I'd never think of deflowering
at planting.