Challenged by my MIL - 'don't kill these.....' HHHEEELLLPPPPPPP

[RusselBrussel]

So, my (lovely and very green-fingered) MIL dropped round two tiny plants she had grown from seed. One Chilli plant and one Pepper plant.
Her instructions to brown-fingered me were as follows:
'Don't kill these'

So, I have watered them, and on advice of my good-at-gardening-friend have fed them with tomato feed. I even potted them on to give them more space. And they are growing, so far so good!
But now I have a crisis - good-at-gardening-friend is on holiday, and my chilli plant has tiny things (chillies I presume?) hanging off it.

Do I need to do anything? I vaguely remember killing some tomato plants last year by not pinching out or too vigorously pinching out or something like that.

What do I do with these plants??

[RusselBrussel]

bump so you all see this before you get out into your gardens

[fymandbean]

I don't think you do anything with them.... just a sunny windowsill...

[RusselBrussel]

Really, so no pinching out of shoots like iwth tomato plants? No tender singing/stroking of leaves?

I can do that!

But windowsill? Mine are on a sunny spot on the patio. Is that okay or do they need to be indoors??

[AbbeyA]

Am I supposed to pinch out shoots from my tomato plants? If so which ones? I just water them and leave them to grow.

[fymandbean]

depends what variety they are....

If the are "tumbling toms" or similar "patio" tomatoes you don't do anything.

If they are normal (moneymaker or ...can't think of any more) you take out the side shoots (the extra leaves that grow between the main leaves)

from here

"8. Pinch & Prune.
Pinch and remove suckers that develop in the crotch joint of two branches. They won?t bear fruit and will take energy away from the rest of the plant. But go easy on pruning the rest of the plant. You can thin leaves to allow the sun to reach the ripening fruit, but it?s the leaves that are photosynthesizing and creating the sugars that give flavor to your tomatoes."