Today I did one of the things that is hardest for me - thinning plants. Each of my seedlings is like a baby to me and I have a hard time getting rid of them. Last year I carefully separated each extra tomato plant and then replanted them. Almost every one of them survived. But that meant I had a LOT of tomato plants. Way too many. I had a hard time even giving them all away.

This year I did what I should have in the first place - I thinned the plants. I went through and selected which one of the plants in each pod was the biggest and healthiest. I then removed all of the rest of them. It's a hard thing to do when you love all your plants, but it means that you give the remaining plants the best outcome possible.

Some people recommend just using a small pair of scissors and snipping off all of the plants except the one you want to keep. This helps to keep from damaging the roots of the plant you're keeping.