Too early to plant tomatoes?

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Our May weather is showing 40s and 50s for lows and 60s and 70s for highs. A lady down the street who I think is an experienced gardener planted tomatoes today. DS thinks she bought them at Walmart, lol. They are huge and apparently hardened off. I think she planted peppers too. Am I wasting time by not planting something soon? I am so confused about this weather.

 

[dickiebird]

Way to early for me, I do have mine in the green house, but will wait another week to plant.

THANX RICH

 

[jackb]

You might check this out:

https://davesgarden.com/guides/freeze-frost-dates/

 

[flowerbug]

wow, for us that would be a month early. soil temperatures are still way too cold and the plants will likely not do much growth until it gets warmer. we went from freezing/frosts overnight to 81F yesterday afternoon in two days. the soil is going to be too cold for any planting for a while. rain is what we need now. in forecast for today, tonight and for a few days.

good luck if you plant out, but i sure am not even thinking much of anything for a few weeks. be ready to cover them for frost protection.

 

[digitS']

I have tomato plants on the lawn in a hoopy, in the hoop house with an electric heater and a fan, and a few little guys still in the greenhouse where it is a comfortable 60°f at 4am.

The weather service "promised" that it would be 43° for an overnight low. The wunderground volunteer in my neighborhood has it as 37° right now. I've got 41° under the carport roof.

Years ago, I was new to using that hoop house over the two garden beds. I had a crowded greenhouse so moved tomatoes out to the center path of that hoop house. No heat. Inside, it was 37° the very next morning. I had a few of those plants die sitting right beside the thermometer so I know it wasn't colder. Many had damage - the foliage was just too tender coming from the greenhouse.

Other than thoroughly venting every structure where they are sheltered during the few sunbreaks we have had the last few days, none of my tomato plants are hardened off to outdoor conditions. It hasn't hit 60° during an afternoon in days. Even those 2 hot April days had 40° difference between morning and afternoon temperatures.

We can ignore the University of Georgia telling us to wait to transplant outdoors when overnight temperatures are above 60°. WSU says, "If temperatures drop below 50°F, keep them indoors." Cornell says "Nighttime temperatures should be consistently above 45 F." (link) Both U of Idaho and Colorado State say something about "Tomato transplants prefer a temperature between 60 -65°F, soil temperature ..." When is that? Mid-July?

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

Planting tomatoes in North Idaho already! Wow! Now is about when I normally plant them but I'm a lot further south. That's still about a week early for the recommended pepper planting date. Tomatoes can handle it a bit cooler than peppers. Sometimes I still get some cool spells, not so much frost but just cool weather, and I think they get stunted. Some never recover and are just poor producers all season though most do OK. It's not just air temperature, it is also soil temperature. My tomatoes and peppers just don't do well if I plant them too soon. Is your neighbor doing something to warm them up, like maybe some type of greenhouse or maybe spreading black plastic to solar warm the soil?

The other end of it is that most tomatoes don't set on very well when nighttime temperatures get too hot, like they do here. If i can get mine producing early enough before the heat sets in I can get pretty good production, but then I have to nurse them along all summer until it finally cools off. They rebound and that's when I get most of my tomatoes for sauce and such. I don't know what your nighttime temps are but as high an elevation you are I'd think you'd have some really pleasant cool nights. But I don't know how early your season ends either.

I once asked Carla at the local mom 'n pop gardening center why she had plants available too early to plant. She said it was mostly for people with greenhouses. She probably has a point but I think most people just get the urge and can't wait even if they should. She sometimes sells out of varieties I want so I'll buy some early and re-pot them until it's time to plant.

I get that urge too. Several people on the bean thread have expressed that same sentiment but seem to know they need to wait unless they have plenty of seeds to replant.

I don't know what the right answer is for you, there are different things to consider. But I'd guess it's still a little early.

 

[ducks4you]

You could plant a sacrificial one and see how it does!
My MIL wouldn't plant her tomatoes until Memorial Day and I agree. We just had a FREEZE warning Sunday night! Yep, it's in the 80's today, but 50's at night, maybe 40's at night next week. I have 12 bought Best Boys under grow lights on top of a heat mat in the basement. I have started some old tomato seeds in a big, black plastic with an opaque top food take home container over a heat may under a grow light and I must have 50-75 up and they will stay there until I move them to the porch for nursery-ing.
I have the two 12-14" on the south ledge of the east facing porch where I can shut the window if it gets too cold. They have almost a dozen small tomatoes on them and they will NOT go into the ground until the end of the month.
Tomatoes are tropical plants and cannot survive a frost well, although the first frost in the Fall never seems to really kill any of mine on the ground. A hard freeze and they are goners.
I was at the local FS this week looking for groundcovers and the owner told me that some guy brought back his small tomato plants that he had bought there several weeks ago, and had put out in his garden and they died, and he wanted to exchange them. How RUDE!!! That is money down the drain for the owner of the FS bc he was an idiot.
So, NO, Virginia, don't put them out too early.

 

[thistlebloom]

I would wait at least until after Mothers Day, the watermark for our area. Mine have been spending all day outside and brought in at dark.
I was tempted to leave them out last night (because I forgot about them until bedtime) but I got out of bed and did it anyway.
I'm glad I did, my thermometer said 30 when I got up.
You never know when we'll get a surprise frost.

I did pick up some Wall'O'Waters to protect a few, but haven't had the time to get them planted.

 

[Collector]

@Gardening with Rabbits . I say way to early for tomatoes around here, unless you have time to cover and uncover daily. I stick with the second weekend in May to plant bulk of garden.

 

[Collector]

@thistlebloom , we haven’t even started hardening off yet, without the cold frame it a lot more work. I guess I better get started on it although I may put off tomatoe and pepper planting a week or so this year cause of the cool temps.