Peppers flowering way too early

[peppernoob]

So I recently transplanted my peppers from their starter pots to full sized ones, and a few days later, they are already starting to flower. I got started pretty late, I think I planted the seeds around the beginning of May, so they are not very old. The plants themselves are between 4 and 10 inches tall, and all of them have 2-4 flower buds beginning to grow. Could this be because of stress from transplanting them, or possibly because we have had a cold snap recently? (Went from upper 90s to low 70s for the past week.)

Has anybody had this happen? What can I do to fix this and get my peppers to focus on vegetation instead of flowering? If I pinch off the flowers, will the plant "know" it needs to keep growing, or will it just keep trying to regrow buds?

Sorry for the crappy pictures, but all I have is a cell phone for a camera.

 

[LUCKYDOG]

I prefer to pinch them off and to let the plant focus on getting some decent size

 

[tonyscoots84]

i look at it as having healthy plants

 

[SRBII]

I prefer to pinch them off and to let the plant focus on getting some decent size

+1 LD

in my research i have found if the first blooms set fruit on allready stressed or small plants, they can stunt the plant especially if it is growing under stressful conditions such as low fertility, moisture or speratic temperatures.
By pruning the first flowers and allowing more plant growth you will get a higher yield later.

 

[bigt]

Pinch 'em. Both you and your plants will be much happier in the long run.