Hi, Sherri,

I'm not sure I can answer all of your questions, but I can offer you my experience, which is anecdotal not scientific. ;)

There is fluctuation across zones as you have noted. For example, I am in zone 5a because Lake Michigan helps keep my area of Northeast Wisconsin warmer in the winter but cooler in the summer. My family in Nebraska is also in zone 5, but their summer temps are much hotter--90s and 100s are common in the summer, while are winters are more similar, but I have slightly colder winter temps on average and spring is later here. My Nebraska family harvests tomatoes in July, easy. For me, harvesting tomatoes in August is normal. Sometimes the cherry tomatoes are ripe in July if the summer is warmer.

When I have winter sown tomatoes, they usually produce around a similar schedule as my purchased tomato plants. My purchased tomato plants are bigger to begin with and get taller faster, but once the temps heat up, my winter sown tomatoes catch up size-wise. Also, the tomato blossoms and fruits of both purchased plants and winter sown plants develop at the same rate. Again, this is my experience.

Last year was an abysmal tomato year for me. All of my plants were purchased and the head start in growth did nothing for early or on-time production; I also purposely picked 65-70 day ripening tomatoes and even my Sun Gold did not start producing ripe fruit until August. Our summer was so cool. Tomatoes weren't ripening until September and then it was getting so cool and ready for frosts. :( I hope this summer is warmer and better.

I hope some of this helps! :)

cheers,
Norabelle

Here has been my experience. My indoor tomatoes and peppers start producing by the beginning of June and I usually get a few ripe tomatoes to pick by the beginning of July. My wintersown tomatoes sprout mid June, and I don't pick tomatoes or peppers until mid/late August. I always do both because that way I have early tomatoes and late tomatoes.

One reason why people in the same zone have different growing experiences is because the zones are based on average number of days that area goes below 0 in a given year (correct me if I am wrong someone). My zone 5 is very dry. Here in Northern Nevada we get very little to no precipitation during the summer and the heat is very dry. The elevation is higher than some other people's which I believe is one of the reasons I get sprouts earlier than other zone 5ers.

The dates until maturity have to do with how quickly that type of tomato matures it has nothing to do with how cold a plant can handle. For those people who have shorter growing periods, it is better to stick to tomatoes that have a shorter DTM.

Thanks so much, that certainly helps. At some point I may get the hang of this.

I always figured when people were talking about short growing periods they were talking about people in Zone 4, like Maine. St. Louis area feels like a pretty long growing season, it can be quite warm in May, hot June - September, and October can be quite mild. It isn't always that way. Last year was really wet, and much cooler. I know it's not a super long growing season like San Diego, CA or Florida and other southern locations. Maybe it just feels like a long growing season because I moved here from Cleveland. I think I'm still recovering from seasonal mood disorder from never seeing sunshine in Cleveland. Had a friend from Seattle who said the one thing she missed terribly living in Cleveland was the nicer weather of Seattle. She was only sort of joking, she said it really was more rainy and gray in Cleveland than in Seattle. It feels like I've had more sunlight here in St. Louis in the last 3 years we've lived here than in all 7 years we lived in Cleveland.