A garden just doesn’t seem like a garden without at least a few tomatoes growing. A rich garden will also produce lots of great tasting tomatoes. One of the keys to tomato success in the garden, though, is in knowing when to plant them.
To simply say that this depends on the local climate doesn’t help a great deal, though it is very true. The problem is that climate is the average of the weather. This means that one year can be hotter and drier than normal, while the next may be colder and wetter than average.
To know the best time to plant them, then, it is easiest and best to understand the optimal growing conditions. You can then judge for yourself when the best time to grow them will be, according to your climate and the weather you are having in any given year. For people who have grown tomatoes for years, most of this will come as no surprise, but a few things might stand out as something not before considered.
Most important of all is that tomatoes are not a cool weather crop. Even a mild frost is enough to ‘zap’ an established tomato plant, killing a large number of the leaves and stems. Mild frosts, though, can be combated early in the growing cycle by covering the plant for the night. It isn’t necessary to have anything as elaborate as a greenhouse or cold frame; simply cutting the bottom out of a plastic gallon milk jug and placing this over the young plants can guard against quite a bit of frost damage.
Another consideration, though, is the general health and size of the plant when it is planted. If you plant directly from seed, the ground must be relatively warm and it needs to stay that way. If you plant the seedling plants, the continual warmth isn’t as firm a rule, and the larger the plant, the better its chances of it surviving and flourishing. Many people start the seeds inside, such as in peat pots, while others buy the seedling plants when they are already well established.
Cold and windy weather need to be guarded against in the early year, especially in areas prone to late winter storms.
There is a bit of a misunderstanding, though. Many people think that for the best crop, the tomatoes must go into the ground as early as possible. This isn’t always the case. Tomatoes grow according to three things; soil quality, amount of water, and amount of sunlight. It isn’t unusual to have one person planting tomatoes in April while a neighbor waits until June, yet for the two to have nearly identical crops.
Tomatoes require
