The growth of a plant can be slowed by pruning a terminal bud but what about just removing lower leaves?

I've had some problems with plant starts this season and made a mistake. Fooled by a very warm winter, I started seed too early. March & April have had more than their usual number of days with clouds. The tomatoes began to stretch.

Thinking that I'd better cool them down while still providing adequate heat for the peppers & eggplant - I moved the tomatoes out of the heated greenhouse and into the unheated plastic tunnel with the greens . . .

Big MISTAKE! That night (April 9th), it was 26°F! I was up early and watching the remote thermometer, ready to carry an electric heater into the tunnel and plug it in. It was 38° in there and I hated to open the door, besides - the sun was coming up.

Well, either 38° was too cold for some of them or something was wrong with the thermometer! The leaves on about 20% wilted right down. By evening, it was obvious that they had been chilled more than they could take and the wilted leaves were pruned off. By then, all the plants were back in the greenhouse - where they have stayed.

The 80% were potted up to larger containers last week and are doing fine. In fact, I went thru the 20% and some of those went in 3.5" pots, also. What I'm surprised about is that none of them have done much of anything over the last 20 days!

Lots of these plants had no damage to the growing buds and they have made some recent growth but they are far from the tall, rootbound 80% that did not lose leaves. They just stopped growing, or nearly.

Might I have just removed their lower leaves 3 weeks ago to slow their growth? I know that it would have been smarter than moving them into that darn tunnel and allowing the cold to do it for me.

digitSteve