Restarting seedlings... Overreaction?

[Chuck]

OK, first things first. DO NOT grow more than one pepper plant in a container. Snip off the weakest of the two. This should have been done long ago. In Texas weather you DO NOT prune tomato plants. The exception to this after the plant has been transplanted you remove any limbs and suckers that may get soil splashed up on them during heavy rain or watering. Folks in northern states prune suckers but they do not have the type of sunlight we have here in Texas. Ours is much more intense. And pruning suckers reduces the number of fruits. Many will claim that the size of the fruit is reduced by not pruning. I contend that this is just pure crap, at least in our area. Pruning will not stop an indeterminate from getting tall. Cutting the growing stems in half will though. You will have to stake or cage your tomatoes in any case and if they grow 4 feet tall any growth after than will by gravity hang and grow downward. I seriously doubt if your fall tomatoes will grow to 8 feet. You need to start hardening off your plants now. Start off at a couple of hours per day in the AM. This is important, otherwise when you transplant them the weather will adversely affect them. The yellowing on the cherokee purple leaves is not normal. At this time all you should do is keep a close watch on them and see if the discoloration spreads. It is probably a singularity in the plants but just in case keep a close watch on them.

 

[Lmbauer2017]

OK, first things first. DO NOT grow more than one pepper plant in a container. Snip off the weakest of the two. This should have been done long ago. In Texas weather you DO NOT prune tomato plants. The exception to this after the plant has been transplanted you remove any limbs and suckers that may get soil splashed up on them during heavy rain or watering. Folks in northern states prune suckers but they do not have the type of sunlight we have here in Texas. Ours is much more intense. And pruning suckers reduces the number of fruits. Many will claim that the size of the fruit is reduced by not pruning. I contend that this is just pure crap, at least in our area. Pruning will not stop an indeterminate from getting tall. Cutting the growing stems in half will though. You will have to stake or cage your tomatoes in any case and if they grow 4 feet tall any growth after than will by gravity hang and grow downward. I seriously doubt if your fall tomatoes will grow to 8 feet. You need to start hardening off your plants now. Start off at a couple of hours per day in the AM. This is important, otherwise when you transplant them the weather will adversely affect them. The yellowing on the cherokee purple leaves is not normal. At this time all you should do is keep a close watch on them and see if the discoloration spreads. It is probably a singularity in the plants but just in case keep a close watch on them.

I grew two peppers in a few of the containers intentionally. I was under the impression that peppers could be grown like this and do fine (this is from reading and watching videos of others suggesting it), but I value an experienced opinion growing in the same climate over a youtube video ANYday lol. I'll go ahead and cut the weaker ones. My wife has graciously agreed to set the seedlings out each day for me while I'm at work (starting today). We'll increase the time each day. I may plant them on Sunday if they look OK, otherwise it'd have to wait until the following weekend. I can make some temporary makeshift shade cloth canopy for the front yard.

Avoiding sucker pruning in our climate is VERY sound logic. I imagine this could be one of those things that gets talked about so often that it becomes fact... I definitely noticed how my cantaloupes would struggle more if the leaves covering them got thinned out by me thinking they should be... I'm much more careful with what leaves I remove now on them.

 

[Chuck]

I grew two peppers in a few of the containers intentionally. I was under the impression that peppers could be grown like this and do fine (this is from reading and watching videos of others suggesting it), but I value an experienced opinion growing in the same climate over a youtube video ANYday lol. I'll go ahead and cut the weaker ones. My wife has graciously agreed to set the seedlings out each day for me while I'm at work (starting today). We'll increase the time each day. I may plant them on Sunday if they look OK, otherwise it'd have to wait until the following weekend. I can make some temporary makeshift shade cloth canopy for the front yard.

Avoiding sucker pruning in our climate is VERY sound logic. I imagine this could be one of those things that gets talked about so often that it becomes fact... I definitely noticed how my cantaloupes would struggle more if the leaves covering them got thinned out by me thinking they should be... I'm much more careful with what leaves I remove now on them.

My advice is to not plant them this Sunday but next Sunday. This will give them about 1 1/2 weeks to harden off. Start off the first couple of days at 2 hours and then every other day add about an hour. Look at your pepper plants where there are two growing. It looks great but then you realize there are two plants and basically each of them is only 1/2 lush and full instead of the whole plant being this way. So, in reality you are watering, feeding and maintaining 2 plants whereas you only get the benefits of one. In peppers this is really important because a pepper plant sends out numerous limbs which will have peppers on them for the entire circumference of the plant. And by having two plants that close you are in effect blocking the sunlight and photosynthesis for 1/2 of the plant, but the plant still needs to be fed and watered. 2 root systems=double the nutrient uptake minus 50% of two plants production. Don't make sense do it?

 

[Lmbauer2017]

My advice is to not plant them this Sunday but next Sunday. This will give them about 1 1/2 weeks to harden off. Start off the first couple of days at 2 hours and then every other day add about an hour. Look at your pepper plants where there are two growing. It looks great but then you realize there are two plants and basically each of them is only 1/2 lush and full instead of the whole plant being this way. So, in reality you are watering, feeding and maintaining 2 plants whereas you only get the benefits of one. In peppers this is really important because a pepper plant sends out numerous limbs which will have peppers on them for the entire circumference of the plant. And by having two plants that close you are in effect blocking the sunlight and photosynthesis for 1/2 of the plant, but the plant still needs to be fed and watered. 2 root systems=double the nutrient uptake minus 50% of two plants production. Don't make sense do it?

You know.... I was looking at them the other day and kind of wondering the same thing lol. Once again, thank you for the invaluable advice Mr. Chuck! I'll keep you posted on the progress.