Part 0800.0005

[rabbitfluff]

Not sure if this is a daft question or not, but what exactly should I be pinching out on peppers and aubergines? They don't seem to have a single growing tip as such to pinch out, more several growing bits where they've forked. Is it just any new growth above 30cm (the BBC website recommends 30cm)? Also, a couple have flowers on - are these ok to come off too? Sorry for being a bit dim!

[chickencam]

I have been wondering this too, I am just letting mine grow at the moment and they look healthy and are setting fruit. It is much easier with tomatoes.

[Tara.F]

Peppers that are tall and slim can be pinched out to make them more bushy. This is because the fruit tends to grow at the point where branches meet.

It is also a good idea to limit the number of fruit on large sweet pepper types...with these you have a choice, lots of little green peppers or a few big fully ripe ones. Since you can pick and eat peppers at any point, if you have several plants its a good idea to limit the fruit on some and not others for a good range of colours and sizes.

 

I never bother pinching or limiting the smaller chilli peppers.

[rabbitfluff]

I've done 1 pepper, 1 chilli and an aubergine, as much out of curiosity as anything else to see if there's much difference between a bushy and a lanky plant. I assume/hope I've pulled off the right bits otherwise the difference might be one's alive and one isn't.