A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Questions (I think I posted in the wrong forum B4)

I am a newbie--I have had a couple gardens in my life but the last few years have really started to enjoy it and even got a few things to grow last year! I am starting seeds this year and it makes me nervous that I will kill them so I joined in hopes of getting answers to questions sothat I can keep the little babes alive!

I now have tomatoe, habenero, pumpkin, pickling cucumbers, lots of hot peppers, and a couple wave petunia seedlings sitting in my window sill. Right now they only have the "cotlydon" set of leaves on them, when do the "true leaves" show up and do I really snip them off? That scares me. Of course, I can hardly stand to thin my plants in the first place so snipping leaves is scary. Also, what is tip-pruning. I read someplace that you are supposed to tip-prune the petunias as they are growing but I cannot figure out what exactly that is.

Thanks! Sorry for the long post--I have lots of questions :)

No, don't snip off your true leaves. I don't snip off any of the leaves on my seedlings and they always do just fine. Hope it's not long till you can put these in the ground! Those cukes will do an alien takeover on your house if you have them inside for very long! They grow so fast I always just direct seed mine (along with squash, cantaloupe, anything in that family). Tip pruning is also called pinching. You take off the tips of some of your stems to encourage a fuller growth habit for the overall plant. Some folks find this hard to do but without it, many plants will grow very leggy.

I snip off my tomatoes, but only after they are about 1 1/2 feet tall. I snip everything below 6 inches. Tomatoes grow live vines and I found that if I do it when they are young, it will provide more growth, and the plant will put the engery twards the flowers and fruits it's producing.I'll try and find a picture to post on my 'maters.

Yeah pruning and sniping and pinching makes me nervous too cause I feel like I may not be doing it right and screwing up my plants.

Although I did just read an article that says kinda like what chrissy does on her tomatoes.

For tomatoes I think they say to snip everything off below the first vine of fruit. That way the energy goes into creating bigger fruit and a stronger stalk or something like that.

So you have quite a while before you have to do any snipping on your tomatoes. I don't know about the rest and an interested myself because I'm also growing peppers and am pumpkin.