you have extremely high expectations for a recent transplant.. in what has been a very cold .. long.. spring ...

i would give it a month.. and hope the soil warms thru the root mass ...giving it time to finish getting 'established' .. and then decide if it needs to be taught a lesson with the shears ...

you took if from a very toasty house... outside.. where temps fall every night into the 40s ... the soil loses its heat at night... so though you might think its all 60 and 70 degree days ... the plant is in both transplant shock.. and a bit of suspended animation as to soil temps .. one might say.. its hardening itself off .. to temps ...

if you have more than one... go at one .. leave a second.. take pix.. and document how each responds.. and whammo.. you are the new expert ... i didnt have the WWW when i experimented and learned all this stuff.. and besides.. i tend to remember my experiments.. and wont be back asking again next year.. because i forgot what someone else said ....

we had a good frost fri night.. due east of you in adrian mi ... i hope you are watching for that .... in your z5 ... just because you were ready to hoik them outside.. doesnt mean ma nature is in on that program... lol

BTW... thats a pretty nice.. fat and happy seedling for homegrown... good work ...

ken

ps: EVERYWHERE a leaf is attached,... you will see a bud.. first leaf back from the flower.. the bud is large.. i can see it in your pic ... and each leaf down.. the bud get smaller ... you cut just above any bud ... and that is the whole point of pinching back .. you pinch to a bud.. either seeing it.. or knowing its there..P is a brilliant plant to learn on.. because you can see them... when you know what to look for ...

Thanks, Ken!

That frost that hit you almost got us--I am down in central IL. I covered these Friday night, and my hubby reported that at 4 a.m. there was no frost in sight.
I think we bottomed out around 39.

Thank you for the tip on the pinching. I am definitely going to wait, as I think you're right with the acclimation. I was very pleased with how easy these were to grow...I will definitely do it again!