To Pinch or Not to Pinch: It's the Gardener's Prerogative

In our 17th episode, we discuss the techniques of pinching and topping. Sometimes people confuse the two. The practice of pinching off flowers in the early stages of growth is meant to force the plant to concentrate energy on green growth, meaning stems, branches, and leaves.

The practice of topping is used in a few situations. Topping your tomatoes at the end of the season forces them to concentrate on maturing the fruit on the vines.

Many gardeners top plants early in their growth to promote bushier plants. To pinch or not to pinch, to top or not to top...these are deep, life questions, lol.

Join us as we discuss methods, reasons, and short seasons. Like most things in the garden, there are no hard and fast rules. However, understanding the reasons for the techniques allows the gardener to make their own choices and control for their desired results. 

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Transcript

Hello Sherva. today we're having a lovely day in Karen's conservatory. We've already walked her garden she has everything going on.
It's beautiful. Oh, the tomatoes. They're looking great.
It's our time of the year. It's our time to shine.
How are your tomatoes doing?
Oh my god, I had a disaster. I think you saw it on the page I posted. So my tomatoes one of my biggest strongest, the, the stem is nice and thick. And I don't remember what the hell I was doing whether I was proof snipping off the suckers or what? But I snapped off like, it was like a good 12 inches of it. And it had huge flowers on it. It had nice big flowers on it. So I was so upset. But um, that's happened to me several times in the past. And I don't even bother waiting to root it, I just trim the end, trim the bottom and stick in some dirt. And it looks like hell for about three, four days, and you think it's not going to come back and then it routes and then come back. And so yeah, if any of you break your plans, don't think oh my god, now my plan through and I'm gonna throw it away, you can use that top end. In fact, I'm gonna have the bottom two because it was really, it was about a third of my plan. So I had flowers lowered down and tons of other leaves on it. So now I'm going to have double of that one. And it's one that looks really delicious. I haven't tried it before. In fact, none of the tomatoes I'm growing. I've tried before, but it's called balls, yellow balls hot. So it's a nice big, bright yellow hot shaped tomato. So now and that's gonna be one of my favorites, I'm sure so I'm gonna have two of them. I'll probably give that second one away. Because like I said, I have about 50 plants.
Now explain how why that works. All those hairs that are on the stem will become roots. Yeah,
they will become the de form into roots. So now you could some people put the plant in water and wait for the roots to develop and it will look healthier, it will look like it's alive. And because it's in water, but if you stick it directly in the dirt. I heard that well I've done it before. In fact, I did it with my apricot zebra a few weeks ago that happened again. But if you stick it directly in the dirt, it's going to look like it's dead. For about three, four days, the leaves are all going to be flopped over and wilted. In fact, I trim back some of the leaves when I do that because it's putting too much energies in the leaf so I trimmed back along the leaves and just to get in the dirt and just wait for it and like I test it and I could feel it's solid it's feeling good. The route isn't soft, it doesn't get soft and like my if you looked at my apricot zebra Now you wouldn't even know that that happened to it. I don't know I didn't I don't know what happened with the apricot zebra. I just noticed it didn't seem right. And as I felt the same, I could see it had snapped in there somehow. So I just took off that top part and stuck it in the dirt and it's fine. And actually that happened with one of my other tomatoes last year. Which one was it?
We had heavy rains I wonder if we can that year yeah. I kept worrying about mine. I kept going because it
was I went out right. Yeah. And then it happened to another one Rosella cherry. The top pot snapped off. I already have two of those. I don't know how, because there's a Rosella dwarf tomatoes and the Rosella cherry, and I was under the impression I had two different varieties. I'm not sure one of them I can clearly see is a Rosella cherry, but I'm not sure if the other one is a Rosella cherry or whatever so anyway this one I didn't put into this because I don't need three rosellas I stuck this one in water and I'm gonna give up probably give it to Karen
so you can have her lost my game
yeah yeah oh my what you call them like all my my volunteers that are coming back you know I'm giving away to people I bought two for Karen today have no idea what they are once irregularly once a potato leaf and we'll see what we get.
I had over near my elderberries, it's on this side next to the fence. Had some tomatoes come up. I'm pretty sure I either was frustrated at the groundhog had to had chow down on one and I threw it out there. Or then I started thinking it could be that my dog last year when we first got him I didn't know this but he likes green tomatoes. And he would go out there and run around and play and then all of a sudden he get this little impish look on his face. And he'd run towards the tomatoes and grab one and then he would a green tomato, and then he'd run away. And he turned back and look at me like Ha ha, ha. I'd be so frustrated. So it might have been one he he dropped. Anyway, I took those and I moved them into the garden. Oh, mystery mystery. Yeah, actually,
I have. And I was meant to grow them to share. I have two sets of seeds that I dried last year, and forgot to every time I do it, I said, Oh my God, I'll put label on it. I remember I remember it just when I remember. And there was two of them that I have no idea what it was. And I kept the seeds on I labeled the mystery one mystery two. And I was meant to grow one of each this year just to see what it took what they were, what they were and I still haven't done that. I have
a pack of seeds in my refrigerator. I'm pretty sure they're flower seeds. I have no idea what they were because I was sure I would remember. And every time I open they were gone on the door. It was something that had to be winter, winter winterized. Whatever, you there's a name for those stresses
yield stress gratification.
I can't keep onto that word. So every time I open the door on the door, every time I open I look at it and it marks me. So I should have grown them anyway. Yeah, but yeah, everything's alive. It's super exciting.
My potatoes are out of control. Like my potatoes. Denise tool is me now. And we had that really heavy rain and it not like a knock them down in the middle. In fact, I've had to tie them up with string anyway, because they're, they're so big. I hope I'm gonna have a massive harvest. Yeah, I minored in one of my favorite videos to look at is what you call them potato harvest. Yeah, you just don't know. The
price, right? I love the sweet potato harvest for that reason. There's no
oh, did I tell you I planted the sweet potato. I had this one sweet, but I've never grown seed potatoes. My friend gave. Somebody gave her two. And she'd never grown it. So she asked me if I wanted one. And I said, sure. I'll look up some videos on how to do it. And she told me put it in some water. And it had already started to grow like one tiny root. But I had that thing for I don't know, six weeks, at least. And it was still only grow it I think I think it's still only had the one root so I was getting really fed up with it. And in fact, I I think I drained the water and I didn't even bother anymore. And I looked at it the other day. And it has on slips growing. But the slips are red. Oh yeah, there's like a red purpley color. whereas all the other slips I've ever seen a green. And then I lifted it out of the cup. And there's a ton of routes this time. It was so funny. So um, I posted it on one of my pages ask him, What do I do of it? Should I just do I have to wait for the slips to separate you know, because they say separate the slips and then plan. I'm an easy guide and I don't want anything that's too much work. So I said to some what can I just dig a hole? In fact that asked you about that a while back? Can I just dig a hole and just stick it in the ground and you know, see what happens in before freeze. Like to me if I can just dig a hole, put it in there and not have to worry about it again. That's what I'm gonna do. And they said, Yeah, that'll work. So that was what I did. I can't wait to see ya turns out but you know what, I forgot to put rabbit poop in the hole. So I'm gonna like dig around and put some rabbit poop because my friend came and bought me some more poop supply. Some pooped up again.
And speaking of potatoes, that brings us to our topic. We are going to talk about something specific today, as well as ramble, but we're talking about to pinch or not to pinch. So sure if I had not known this, but she informed me that pinching your potato flowers is a good idea. Yeah, guys,
I didn't know that. I've grown this is like my 30 have grown potatoes. And last year. I loved when they flower because I know they say when they flower. It's a sign that you have potatoes in there. You have little potatoes in there. So I always look for the flower and they're pretty and I love seeing the flowers. But last year I read that once they flower you want to pick those flower you want to stop picking them because you don't want all that energy going into the flowers. You want the energy going into the roots and producing bigger tubers for you. So once I read the last year, I removed all the leaves all the flowers, but I forgot about it again this year. And this year I was enjoying the beautiful flowers again and looking for flowers on all of them. And then I came across a video again and reminded me it's like shoe, so I have to run out there and pick all the flowers. So I think I'm about a month away from harvesting these potatoes. Okay, well I might be close behind you saying because you're the flower into
Yeah, they just started but they call that pinching and I've been reading about pinching various points. ants, some people pinch their tomatoes, I have an here's the reason, when you pinch off the flowers, like she said, all the energy of that plant is not going to go towards flowering, it's going to go towards the green, it's going to go towards stronger stalks and stems and more leaves, which is just going to build a bigger plant. So then you'll have more branches to have more flowers and tomato, let's say tomatoes, for instance, on later, it will delay your tomatoes a little bit, but you'll get more in the long run. So that's why a lot of people will now this this, of course, is on indeterminate. You don't want to do it on determinant, because they all come at once. And why would you do that? Right. But I have so we decided I had decided, sure we had the same idea. We had the same idea separately, I'm going to do a little test. So I have pinched the flowers off of half of mine and not off of the other half. Now I read a lot about to me, you know a lot about did some research about what people are saying about pinching off the flowers on tomatoes. And they said a lot of well to blogs, I read said if the plant is is not 12 inches, just pinch off the flowers. That's because, yeah, it really does any plant it needs to put that energy into growing stronger. But you know how
I feel about that? You know, like when you go to the hairdresser, and they say, oh, we need to cut your hair for it to grow. Right? We need to take off like three inches, and then it's gonna grow more. And you're like, No, I don't know about that. Yeah. So it's scary. You don't want to, you know, because you waited for your plants to grow. And then it's kind of hard to like stop. You're so happy you have flowers because that means you're getting fruit. And now they're like, oh, just pinch them off. So I really don't pinch. I did it. I do it with the potatoes. And I did do it with one of my jalapenos jeopardy because it wasn't very big. It was only about six inches and it had like three flowers. So I did pinch those off. And now they do the flowering again. But that's the only one that I've pinched. Yeah, I've done that.
Pinch the, the my pepper plants that were under 12 inches pinched all those off. And the bigger I let them go. So another experiment we'll see. But I also read about the peppers that sometimes when they blossom early like this, like they're not even six inches tall and they're blocking is because they're stressed in they'll be stressed if they have a cold night. And I'm thinking you know, we have had some cool nights not super cold. But last night was was kind of chilly. When I got up this morning. It was 630 and I had to put a sweater on it was really cold out. I didn't look I don't know why I didn't.
I know yesterday evening when I was sitting outside. I was like always getting cold. I'm gonna go in, but it's in the high 50s Yeah, but I don't think that's too cold for plants.
It just for a pepper it is because they really like it hot. So I think it it's possible that they in they're stressed. They're like all right. I mean, their whole, their whole reason for existence is to send out flowers and reproduce. That's what they're supposed to do. So if they think they're it's getting cold on them and Winter's coming, they'll send out some flowers. So sometimes that might be the problem.
So horrible thought Winter's coming by now. Hey, did you plant your okras the seeds I gave you? Yes.
And they've come up. Have they? Yep, I have three little baby. Oh, Chris. Oh, the red ones. The green ones. Okay, two of each. I have two red ones. One green one. Okay, tiny but no. Leaves. Yep. Okay, cool. And again, it's been so cool at night. They're just Yeah,
I think that's the problem with the okra is it's just it isn't blazing hot enough for them. They need it really hot. Yeah, my Oh, Chris was struggling. They. I mean, they're taking forever to grow. Yeah. So and then I've had like three die.
Yeah, someone die. It went out too early. That's what I'm kind of concerned about them. Because yeah, they like the heat as well.
But something's eating my egg blonde. Now I'm definitely not pinching any eggplant.
I was gonna ask you about that. It doesn't seem to be a need to do that. Well,
I don't know. Because the one that's been eaten was flowering like, like two weeks ago, it was flowering and it wasn't that. It was certainly less than 12 inches, I would say. But something's pinching it for me. I don't need to pinch it someone's ladybugs. I'm seeing a lot of ladybugs. But I think I've seen them on the potatoes. Yeah,
I'm seeing them everywhere. They're on everything. Which makes me
nice. Yeah. I've seen the max you're my brassica. And oh my god. I have I have what's called a flame cauliflower. And it has a decent size head of I don't know maybe the size of orange. Yeah, like the size of a big orange right now. So I'm so excited because I don't think I've ever grown a proper tight cauliflower. I've had cauliflowers get a bit bigger than that. But they open up kind of you know they did not like a proper color. So I'm checking this one daily and then there's a tiny one. Oh, and I ate one of my purple broccolis the other day because it had. So it wasn't fully purple. It was like purple and white. But I ate too anyway. And I have another one that's purple and white I saw in the back, and then some bolted, so I just use the greens and pull those out. But I have, so I never got a purple cauliflower. My other claim cauliflower isn't, you know, I think less than half the size of that one. But I hope those two make it so I can get two pitches of two nice orange cauliflower. And then I'm gonna do those in the fall. And I got my my seven my nine star broccoli finally it came with broccoli. Yeah, yeah. But they really did only put like 10 seeds in there. So they'd like this tiny, tiny things. You know, usually they slip in a few more when you're to seed. But now
Yeah, encounter was counting. Yeah.
Because sometimes you could do five of those and they don't all germinate. So hopefully they will germinate. So I'll have to give you a couple and I don't want to do them all in the fall just in case they don't work. So we can use half in the fall. And then you know if they worked and we don't need to do them again in the spring. Because did perennial, right. But if they don't work, we can try them again in the spring. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, remind me when you come when you kind
of I'm trying more and more to get more perennials. I had Malabar spinach, and that's a perennial spinach last year but so far, I'm not seeing it come up again. So I don't know what happened to it. Oh, I
had seeds. Well, I have seeds for that. I've never used it though. I haven't grown them. But you know that. What did you give me something greens?
Oh, the creasey greens.
They're coming? Yeah, yeah, we I had to pull them all out though. I had them I paired them with my arugula. And I've been eatin arugula but it rootless started to bolt. And I put a tomato in the middle of that same pot because I knew they wouldn't be around long and and then I would you know pull them out and I'd leave the tomatoes in it. But the tomato started to get like really big and I didn't want that to hinder the growth of the tomatoes so and the arugula had already sprouted so bolted so I pulled them out. Yeah, they're
taking a really long time. I got these their greens and I got them from like, it's a winter crests a type of winter crafts. I got them from my cousin in North Carolina. And I saw on Facebook, she's just harvested a whole bunch of them and is counting them and counting
them. How would you can them She evidently they
have to they're one of those screens that like collars that have to be cooked a long time to get tender. So she just cans them up. And then oh,
the thing I had was nothing like that. Maybe needed a long time to go.
They do. I'm seeing her start to and really well. Mine are just they're not even they're like a half inch. They're hardly anything. Yeah. So I don't know why they're taking so long.
Oh, yeah. No wonder I'm glad I took them out because I'd have really ended my tomato. Yeah, it's taken my Yoko persimmon tomato.
So, but yeah, my lettuce is trying to bowl so I'm trying to harvest as much of that as I can. And I'm gonna let it go to seed and save the seeds. I had such a good experience with that last year. And now and I use those seeds again. And now I'm growing the lettuce. It's so easy. And you don't even really have to let that much just let one plant. You have to enjoy them. Yeah, let the one you only need one plant and it'll have like, I don't know, like six flowers on it. And each of those flowers will have like, dozens of seeds. It's all you'd need. So I'm going to do that again with all of my lettuce. And I know that it takes up some space. Yeah,
I wish that I could dedicate time
so I can still plant other things. Yeah, but um, also before we forget along with pinching, let's talk about topping topping. Yes. That's confusing, but yeah, candy.
I topped my tomatoes too late, like because I can't stand when they get out of control and they're like flopped over. Because I most of my tomatoes are in determined. So they're all huge except the doors but um, last year I didn't do that many doors and they just flop over and they double over so at some point once they are over like six feet. I topped them
you're talking like August or September maybe even
probably not even the by September I've given up so probably my August Yeah. Because yeah, they get big really quickly especially like a cherry tomato. Oh my god they get out of control and hanging over the other one and stuff like that. So yeah, at some point, especially the ones on the deck. I remember I taught my pineapple last year and my stripe German they got really big and they were on the deck and I don't want it to get like too messy and like so I took those right and they still produce great tomatoes. Yeah,
what she's and I have done the same thing and it just means you pinch off you know cut off the tops. Yeah. So they'll stop growing. And what that does is it allows more energy to go into maturing the fruits of this already. Yeah, it'll stop. And that's what you want to do kind of towards the end of year and you don't want to have a whole bunch of green tomatoes. Yeah. Yeah, I did that one year. And then the next year I didn't. And I liked having all these green tomatoes.
I remember that when you had a table a whole bunch. Now, I
still have some green tomato salsa and some green tomato chutney that I haven't even used. So I don't think I'm gonna do it again this year because I loved having them, but then the products that you can make out of them. You know, I didn't really use that much. I had
Googled a great arm, but I never made it a lead Indian lady and you told me about it that you can do a green tomato curry. And I googled the recipe and it looked really good. And I said I would do it, but I never actually ended up with that many green tomatoes. Yeah,
yeah, I didn't last year at all. I don't think I had any. But if I do, you know, but I'm not going to make a point of it. Yeah,
I don't want to excuse me. I don't want to have a bunch of green tomatoes. I want to enjoy them during the time. And I'm looking forward to my long keeper tomatoes use. Yeah, germinated.
Yeah. Okay, I have three, maybe four of the same one to the two different kind. Okay,
yeah, I have four as well. I have two Greco de inverno and two giraffes.
Same here. Yeah. Looking forward to those. Yeah, yeah. So that'll be you know, something that we'll have gone into the winter. The other thing that you can talk well, there's several things I like to top my peppers plants, when before I plant them out, when they're still in the pot, I like to let them get a good and established and have about four leaves left after I top them or top just means cut off the top. I don't like to get let them get too much bigger than that. Because then then when you top something like a pepper, it causes the energy to go into more branches. So you're gonna have more branches, you're gonna have a bushier plant. And then you're just going to get that many more flowers on all of these branches. Rather than having one stem that goes straight up and you know, then it gets top heavy. And then you have all those problems. So I've always topped all my peppers before I even put them out. No, I've never done that. Yep, yep. And I like it. I like your results, you'll get a bushier plant and and you won't have to stake it. Now you could you could get a one liter Stan and steak that I used
to only do hot peppers anyways, so they never, you know and then never have to worry about it being top heavy. I am and they do the ones I put in the ground. They do get wide and they do spread out. And that's without topping them. But I do most of them in pots. Every I do maybe a couple in the ground and they spread out wide. Yeah,
yeah. Well, I've always topped them. And I did pinch a few like I said, but um you know, I'm more experimenting this year. Yeah. The other thing that you don't have a lot of but I taught my flower a lot of my flowers. I don't have flowers. I love a bushel flower I hate long, tall, spindly Yeah, and it flops are in your garden, especially the zinnias. I have the Zinnias I had, they'll get four or five feet high. And it's just so unwieldly and I love the zinnias and I put them on the edges of the beds. But they particularly need to be topped. The other flowers i don't think i've Yeah, in my garden. I haven't talked but other you know, types of flowers around the yard. I'll top those too, if I need to. In fact, I'm looking right now I'm looking out at my Nikos xiana which is tobacco. And I let it go wild this year. A lot of it wintered over and then a lot of it's coming up from seeds. It's it's just it's just enormous. And I probably should have topped those. But I wasn't thinking about it because they're tall and spindly now, and they flop over into the into the out of the border. I
kind of like that look, though. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
that's the thing. It, whatever it is, whatever it will be, it will be and it's gonna be beautiful. I'm not real picky about things. Well,
those have like flopped over too much. But that's probably from the rain from the storm we had. Yeah, they'll
perk back up. Yeah,
I love like a floppy tulip in a vase. I hate tulips to stand up straight. I love it flopped over. Right.
So you know that's the with lilies. I like Flappy lilies. I don't like the ones that look straighter. Yeah, it's the the aesthetic is just nicer. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. What else do we talk we don't talk poker though. I'd be lucky to get my freakin okra to grow let alone I definitely want to up it because I needed to grow. What else do we do? What else I'm trying to think what else I have. I have eggplants I have okras I have hot peppers. Do Do you do any paprika peppers this year? I want to I want to try paprika. Oh, which one did you do? Don't ask me the name of mine. It's a brand name. And it begins with L. I don't remember the name. Yeah, the one I did. Or is it the one with P? Because I did too. And one of them is the one that I did in January. That didn't germinate and then I didn't bother go back to it. Tell you
what, I have my list right here. I try to keep if I'm growing something new, I try to keep a list of all the things that I grew I'm growing a lot of hot peppers that I haven't grown before.
Oh my god, you should see my variegated fish pepper that you gave me. Isn't it beautiful? And
mine are really small and last year they got really state smiles like this big already. Yeah. So I'm growing Dado, which is vicious heat. Carolina, cayenne, Serrano, shito. variegated fish pepper, long, slim Cayenne, peach, sugar, rush, Tabasco, jalapeno. King of the North is just the green bell pepper. I'm growing and sweet banana pepper, and habanero, and Anaheim. So there's all the peppers. I guess I'm not growing pepper Rica. I'm wrong. I think I'm growing everything in the world. Then I go back to my list. Oh, maybe? No, I'm not. No,
I'm going to pepper that I'm cold. yellow monster. So yeah, it's supposed to be like 12 inches long. And it's a green and yellow pepper. So I'm curious to see what that's right. It should make some nice fajitas
Well, I'm really I've been following this. This chef on YouTube, his name is Rick Bayless. And he I've talked about him before he was a chef. He went to school in Mexico City and he has a Mexican restaurant up in Chicago I several restaurants, but he teaches cooking Mexican food and I'm so looking forward to chilis. Ray knows I love those. And he's got several ways to do it. And I'm gonna just do it with every single pepper I've got every single pepper is gonna get stuffed. What did I hear you can do it with cheese. You can do it with sausage.
He sausage sounds nice.
He had some he had a chef doing doing it with making a vegetarian he just stuffed it with sauteed peppers or sauteed onions and and cheese
and mushrooms. Yeah, tomatoes. That'd be nice. And then you drizzle
a tomato sauce over like a chili sauce. And and also I've been playing around with using dried peppers for all kinds of seasonings. I made the hurry hurry Issa seasoning and we have the recipe on our website. Several versions of the recipe. I love that stuff. It's
a really good old Teresa before but I love it too. And
homemade what a different Yeah, I'm sure so easy was so easy. So I can't wait to dry some of these and make some seasoning out of them too.
Yeah, I want to dry some I have some and some dried chilies and it was just everything. It was just I I pulled a bunch of them laid them all out to dry. And then I flaked some so I have some fleet and then I powdered some. And it is so spicy. If I open it goes right up my nose. Yeah, so it's really like them. Put them in a blender like a meat I dried them and put them in a blender so they're not not you know, knock them out. We just keep pressing it on. You have like some some flakes.
Yeah, how do you use a flex?
I thought sometimes, like Ethan lumps me to make chilies. So I'll throw Excuse me. I'll throw it a powder in a chili. But if I'm making I use flakes the other day What did I put the flakes in. Maybe it was a stir fry. And I thought I made something that wasn't spicy enough. And I put some flakes in there. I don't remember what it was. Because in a stir fry I use the Thai peppers unless I unless I was just being lazy. And I didn't want to go into freezer, but I use some fleek ones the other day and just RK threw it in so
I think what we're gonna do closer to pepper time is we're just going to have a page of recipes that's just peppers and we're just gonna keep adding Oh, we tried this with it and we use that and we did this it's gonna be a whole page of what to do with peppers, hot peppers, but
I want to get dehydrated because for me last year, I just left them out to dry just just out on the table.
You can hang them some people like you know, you see them hanging? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would. I yeah, I definitely liked the dehydrator. You can dehydrate them in the oven to you know, just turn it on to about 200 degrees, put in your peppers, close the door, turn it off and leave them for 12 hours or so. It will dry them without cooking them.