Nancy, I'm in zone 5; we never plant tomatoes until June because they really don't do very well until it gets hot anyway. Plant whatever you can find. You'll have fall tomatoes, and if you have too many, will have plenty of takers as everyone's plants will be long gone by then. Don't worry; just plant when you get home and you'll have a bountiful (if late) crop.

We have planted tomatoes as late as July 1 if the spring is cold and wet. Your local Extension service can suggest varieties suitable for a short growing season.

Also great are heritage varieties from Russia, Poland, etc. where summers are brief and tomatoes need to be hardy. We've had great luck with Stupice, which is a Czech heritage variety. Smaller tomatoes (about 2") with great flavor and a 52-day growing season. They are prolific bearers and extremely hardy.

Another is the hybrid Gold Nugget, which is a super-sweet yellow cherry tomato with a 55-day growing season.

I've linked to the Cornell Extension homepage. They have a new Master Gardener on staff and a horticultural inquiry line you can call for advice specific to your region.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell University Extension

I wouldn't wait to plant them. What I would do is try to find some leggy tomato plants now and pot them up into half gallon cardboard milk cartons.

Remove all but the uppermost 2-3 leaves, place the plant into the milk carton and with potting soil up to the remaining leaves. The plants will send new roots out along the stem.

Buy the leggiest ones you can find; otherwise, put a shortie plant in the bottom of the pot & pinch & fill as the plant grows.

A day or two before you're planning to leave, plant the deeply potted plants into the garden. You have the choice of planting it at the same depth as the soil in the milk carton OR you can repeat the leaf removal process all over again.

A good idea to harden the plant off before setting to the garden & to give it a little protection from wind, etc. Wooden shingles or coffee cans with both ends removed work well for this.

This is how I always planted my tomatoes when I lived in Oklahoma. Of course, we had several feet of topsoil there (as opposed to the inches of topsoil here in Wisconsin!) But the topsoil depth probably doesn't matter much because tomatoes will send out roots all along the buried stem.

The obvious advantage to this is that it gets the roots deep and you won't have to worry about the transplants drying out. Oklahoma summers are hot, windy & very dry in the western part of the state where I lived, yet I didn't have to worry about watering the tomatoes except for a couple of times during the summer when it was esp. hot & dry and then only for good measure because the plants didn't look like they were suffering.

Get some large gallon plastic jugs with caps, fill them with water, then use a pin to poke a very very tiny hole near the bottom.

Put the jugs near the tomato plants. The water will drip out very slowly to keep the plants watered.

You will be able to go away for a couple of weeks.

dcarch

Either way you would be fine. Chances are it will rain a couple of times at least. I would go ahead and put a couple of plants in. If they live you're ahead of the game. If they don't plant a couple more mid-june. Lots of folks plant around the middle of June because depending on the soil temp tomatoes don't take off until then anyway.

So six of one, half dozen of the other.

Duane

Nancy, mine have been planted in containers for about 4 weeks now and I haven't watered them once. They're in a spot where it's a half day of shade, half day sun though. And we've had rain at least once a week.

If yours are in full sun, I think I'd do what dcarch says. They'll probably be just fine since we haven't gotten to the really hot part of summer.

Good luck! Beth

Nancy, I am a couple of hours north of you and I put my tomato seedlings in already. They seem to be doing pretty well. I haven't paid any attention to them since putting them in ground. Last year, I put my tomatoes in April 16th and had a great (and lucky) crop. I have friends going up for a shopping weekend during that time. Too bad I don't have a passport I could have swung by for a watering, lol. Plus, the nurseries should still have some plants should it not workout by the time you get home.

If you're a serious gardener, invest in a water timer you can attach to your hose outlet and set up an automatic watering system. You'll be glad you did. That way you won't be chained to your plants. That's what I did.

Lots of good advice.

My worry wouldn't be so much the water as it would be frost especially in Zone 5.

I'd wait until you get back or just plant a few and hope for the best. Plant the rest when you get home.

I actually have tomatoes planted both at my primary home in Garland, and at my Tahlequah home, where I'm only at every 2 weeks. I've set up soaker hoses around the plants, along with a variety of ornamentals I've planted, and set a timer at the faucet. So far, it's rained enough that the soaker hoses have been reduntant, but that's going to stop eventually, and hopefully the soaker hoses will do the job. Every time I go up there I expect to see the plants have been eaten by some critter or another, but I've been lucky so far. I only did this because I started them from seeds this year, and they did much better than I expected, and I ended up with way more plants than I planned on, so I was looking for places to plop them into the ground. lol

So, I'd say do as Duane suggested, and go ahead and plant some now, and if it doesn't work out, plant again when you get back.

Sally

I would recommend planting cherry tomatoes and maybe some golden ones. I had both of those in my yard in Venice, and they cross pollinated and made very nice golden cherry tomatoes that grew wild in my yard during the winter, which is the only time we had rain. They seemed to do very well even with the limited amount of winter sun, if that is what you are worried about. I've also found that planting tomatoes late gives me a better crop, even as late as mid June for small plants. I've no luck whatsoever with seeds, except for the ones that go wild. Next year, I plan to put a tomato patch in front of the grape vine. I don't know whether the grape vine make grapes - if it doesn't, I will take it out and replace it with cuttings from the Centinella Adobe across the street, which has wonderful grapes that have been growing there for over a century.

Anyway, I wish you good luck. I think tomatoes like more northern latitudes.

Lars

I'm also in zone 5 Michigan, and I think I'd plant them before I left, as Duane says. If they don't make it, you can replant when you get home and still get a late crop, and you're no further behind.

dcarch's idea is a good one, but I don't think I'd worry about the water. Plant them, water them well before you leave and then hope to heck you don't get frost.

Here we just had a hard freeze last week, killed off the entire first crop of asparagus, it got down to 24F. It was the second hard freeze within a week, we're hoping it didn't hurt the apples or cherries.

Annie

I am in zone 5 and usually can't plant tomatoes until Memorial Day weekend, but I planted three of them outside on April 17th, and surrounded them in these. I will do this again every year from now on.

I buried tall seedlings deep and set up the little water teepees. We've had several frosts and they've caused NO damage to my tomatoes whatsoever. If I stick my hand inside, I can feel that both the air and the soil beneath it stays several degrees warmer. My tomatoes have been blooming their fool heads off for the past couple weeks. I intend to "let them out" after Memorial Day weekend.

I also planted five more tomatoes yesterday without the teepees (we look to be good frost-wise) I can't wait to gauge the difference in fruit production.

I've had these things for years, but never had the courage to use them early. I'll never wait until Memorial Day weekend again!

So my advise would be: Plant them now, put them in water-filled teepees, and set the full, pin-pricked milk jugs next to them before you go out of town. Also, share some tomatoes with your neighbors so you don't feel silly about asking them to water them next year when you go out of town!