Easier said that done isn't it? Every Spring and Fall, I move my potted trees back and forth, sometimes a couple of times per week. After it looks like it's becoming a futile waste of time, I finally stop until next season. But what makes this do-able is these two hand trucks from Nursery Enterprises for moving large potted plants. The bigger one has allowed me alone to do the work of a team of men--all without damaging my expensive pots. I come home from work, quickly move the potted trees before dark, and I'm done. http://www.nurseryenterprises.com/15-gallon-tree-dolly.html http://www.nurseryenterprises.com/large-pot-dolly.html

Violetta - I don't stake tree seedlings. I have put them out without hardening them off completely though, and set them back by at least 6 months. Unfortunately, they were tiny trees I had planned that year to give my sister on her birthday. It's too early to put seedlings outside. And it's not just temps you need to get them acclimated to - the linked article explains the hardening off process so thoroughly, I hope you'll read through it. Here is a link that might be useful: Bracing Up - Hardening Off

Scott, Can you move them to a cooler location? The warmer their location, the faster they grow. You can slow them down by keeping them cool and also by not fertilizing. If you deliberately withhold fertilizer until they are in the ground, they won't get as big as quickly either. As far as not fitting under the shop lights, can you put some of them in a sunny window? A sheltered, partly shady spot where they can get sun part of the day and shade the rest of the day? It is hard to slow them down once they get going, but it is not impossible if you can manipulate their conditions a little. Of course, commercial growers use a growth regulator to keep them short, but we home gardeners don't have that option (and I probably wouldn't use it even if I had it). Are your shop lights adjustable? I can raise and lower mine so that they are as low as 2" from each shelf and as high as about 12" above the shelves. When I start my seeds, I keep the lights so close they are almost touching the soil....and the plants as they sprout. Once the plants are growing, I can slow down the plant growth by keeping the lights down low and close to the plant. For example, if the plants are 3" tall, then the lights are only about 1/2" above the plants. That keeps the plants shorter longer. If I raise the lights to where they are 2" above the plants, the plants almost immediately zoom up that two inches to be closer to the lights. Thus, by keeping the lights almost touching the plants, I keep the plants shorter longer. Because it is rapidly approaching the time when I can plant them into the ground here in southern OK, I am now carrying them outside for about 6 hours a day and they are almost giddy with the excitement of receiving that many hours of real sunlight every day. At this point they are about to outgrow the light shelf anyway, so pretty soon I will just start leaving them on the screened-in porch at night. They may get a little chilly at night, and that will slow them down a little, but that's OK at this stage. Our soil is only in the upper 50s and our nights are still close to freezing most nights, so I can't plant them out unless I use Wall-O-Waters, but it won't be long now..... And, we have all kinds of tomato plants in our Lowe's, Home Depot and Wal-Mart. All are fairly healthy, but I never think that commercially-raised plants look as healthy as those grown at home. Their color always seems kind of "off" and sometimes they already have foliar disease issues even though they are not very old or very large, and have been grown in controlled conditions. Sometimes the earliest plants in the stores don't look as good as those that arrive later too. I always grow way too many tomato transplants, but I love the luxury of having back-up plants in case my garden gets hit by a surprise storm....sleet, snow, hail, etc. I usually end up giving away a lot of the extra plants, but I always hang on to some backups until very late in the season. Some of the backup tomato plants will eventually go into the ground in oddball places where I let them grow away to their heart's content. They will be in semi-shaded out-of-the-way areas where they produce a decent amount of foliage but not fruit. I use them as 'trap plants' for the tomato hornworms. When I find a hornworm in the veggie garden, I transfer it to the trap plants where it can eat and grow to its heart's content. That way, I get to enjoy the sphinx moths later in the season without losing valuable tomato-producing plants to the voracious appetite of the hornworm caterpillars. Melissia, Nothing helps you select a garden spot more quickly than having plants just begging to be planted in the ground! It is great that everyone's transplants are breezing along. Now if only the weather would stabilize at the warmer end of the scale so we could get busy planting! Dawn

Well, I am quite thrilled to read these great responses! I live in Zone 7, but our Winter is still long. The zones just refer to the extremes in temperature, not how long it lasts. I have noticed volunteer tomatoes come out earlier than I would choose to plant out. So, I can watch for that as a sign. I do not have any trouble with legginess of my tomato seedlings. I have a picture window that faces full-South, and shelves there (for seedling starting in Winter) outfitted with shop-lights. I read somewhere that it is important to use fresh bulbs (fluorescent tubes) as the light diminishes over time. I do not get new ones every year, but if one seems to put out less (judging by the plants), I use that on my alpine strawberry seedlings or something else that doesn't mind. I want to start even earlier because I'd like to keep tomato strains true when I grow them out. I plan to grow out severl this year, and if one flowers first for a week, then they are in the clear, and I can mark those fruits, and then not really worry about the rest. I guess what I mean is that an early & staggered start will allow me to focus on each plant as it comes into bloom, selecting from that, and moving on to the next one. I do have some limitations (medically), so it would be easier to focus on them staggered rather then so many at one time. It may not work out the way I hope, but I figure it is a good experiment for this year. By choosing good varieties for this (my un-familiarity with varieties hurts my experiment here) I can better insure success. The funny thing is that I don't really eat tomatoes--except in spaghetti sauce. BUT, everyone else loves them, and I find there is a group involved with tomatoes that have a zeal for the plant like no other vegetable/fruit. A great deal of home-breeding is going on, and I find it the most fascinating thing. Tomatoes provide a great opportunity to study genetics at home, and to look very intensely at varietal development in plants. I guess I am hooked for a reason not common to most, but I am hooked. So, I will try my experiment this year, and see how it works for me. I am thankful at the varieties/categories I see mentioned. When mentioning "use determinate or dwarf" plants, how can I find out which is which? I have consulted some websites, but is there a thorough tomato base out there? Keep the posts coming! Happy Holidays, Robin