If they are fully hardened off and are used to full sunlight, I say go ahead and plant them. They will have greater reserves to draw on in the soil than in transplant containers. Just water real well when you plant them.

Betsy

Plant late in they day too, so they'll have 12 or so hours out of direct sunlight to recover before being blasted by the full light of the sun

I was thinking of planting tonight, so I may give it a go. I thought they might do better in soil, but wanted to check with more experienced gardeners. Thanks!

FWIW, I had my tomatoes almost hardened off a week ago before the rains came (they hadn't been out a full day in bright sun yet). Just put them out on north side of house (so in shade from about 1- 3) and still getting some bleached-out leaves (in fact, some actually burnt around the edges). So if you're not sure whether your plants have been exposed to all-day bright sun (if that's what you have in garden) it might be best to take another couple of days to get them used to it and water/move/shade as necessary. Are you home tomorrow and the weekend to keep an eye on them?

I'd a least try to shade them a bit tomorrow which is supposed to be the hottest day (at least here) if you do plant, and/or hold off until tomorrow night to plant.

I think mine are going to go out Sunday and Monday, weather permitting. I would plant out earlier but my main tomato area gets full sun, no way to shade 100 plants and also no irrigation. So every year I water well when I plant out, try to plant on cloudy days when rain is expected soon, and just hope for the best. But it's usually 15-20 degrees cooler than hat we're expecting right now.

Vickima,

I'm in Ma too, and was having the same debate with myself as you. I decided to go ahead and plant out last night, and so far, so good. I'm still inexperienced, but so far it looks like the plants haven't noticed they were transplanted yet.

Good luck with whatever you decided to do! I'm so happy to finally get mine outside after getting nice and jealous of everybody who's already picking tomatoes further South! :-)

I usually try to get to the nursery where I buy my tomato starts, early. One because I always think I am going to get them in the ground a little early with protection and two because if I wait just a week or two too long, they are often out of the variety I'm looking for.

So I end up sometimes bringing them in the house on freezing cold nights while I wait for the right time to plant. This year has been particularly harder to find the perfect time to plant out. I ended up putting two plants in the ground a week and a half ago and they rode out a couple of nights in the low 40s. Then I put the rest in just as we were going into a heat wave. So far all of them look like they are doing fine. Not ideal, but tomatoes do love heat.

If you are actually planting them on a sunny hot day, I think it can work, if you put an upside down milk crate over them to give them a little shade and air circulation and water them very well. After all, you do usually have to tease the roots loose a little and disturb them so to put them immediately in full sun in 90 degree temperatures can't be ideal. Just a couple of days of shade provided I think can make a big difference, just to give them a little time to get acclimated.

I did end up planting out several days ago at the start of the heat wave. The tomatoes look great, some of the smaller basil seedlings look a little shocked. The tomato seedlings were well established, and I presume had been hardened off well. The basil ones were just babies. They probably could have used some shade. I did keep them all well watered and we've had quite a bit of rain too, which has helped. Weird weather!