My seedlings are usually ready to be planted out about 6 weeks after sowing indoors. Hope this helps.

Typically the recommendation is to start the seeds 6-8 weeks before the plants are able to be set out in the garden. And with tomatoes, that has very little to do with the last frost date but is more relevant to ambient air temperatures and soil temps. Generally, those are considered appropriate when the night time temperature stays above 50F and the soil temperature reaches 60F.

In my area that does not happen consistently until midMay to early June. Mother's Day is the usual trigger. May be different in your location.

Is Long Island really Zone 7? Would have thought you'd be cooler up there. Anyways, I grow in zone 7 in Virginia and sow my Tomatoes on March 15 and set out May 1. Your experiences may differ but these dates work well for me.

It pretty much depends on how big you want the plants to be when you set them out, and the temperature where the seedlings are being raised. But at room temp, and for 4-5 inch seedlings, yes 4-6 weeks is about right.

You have to be careful about "last frost dates". They are often the average date of last frost, which means there is a 50% chance of there being a frost after that date. That's a little risky.

NCDC puts out a nice list of probabilities of temperatures near freezing. Here is the one for New York state.

www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climatenormals/clim20supp1/states/NY.pdf

For example, in Central Park, there is a 90% chance of a freeze after March 20, but only a 10% chance after April 13. For 36 degree temps, those dates are April 4 and 24.

Interesting, I just did a more thorough search for zone info - "Garden.org" said I'm in Zone 6B and "Longislandabout.com" said most of LI is Zone 7, so thank you hokie! I guess I'm sort of in between. I recall last year that I wasn't able to put out my tomatoes until the end of May. The evenings were still cold in early to mid May. The difference for me this year is that I am using grow lights-Last year I put the seedling by a window and they were way leggy. Thanks again for your quick response. Maybe I'll start them late February.

Thank you all! I appreciate it.

Just so it's clear - since it seems to be ignored - last frost date has nothing to do with the timing of when it is appropriate to plant out tomato starts. These are hot season plants and need warm air temperatures and warm soil temperatures to grow well. My last frost date is March 27th but that is almost two months in advance of when conditions are suitable to plant out the starts.

Down here, we get cold fronts coming through that are extremely abrupt. So we can be dancing along with temps in the 70s, and a cold front comes down and freezes averything for one night. So for us, the date of the last freeze is what really counts. Our monthly average temperatures never get below about 50F. So if you can protect from freezes, you can, in principle, put anything in the ground anytime.

Hi gardengal - you were very clear and very helpful about the ambient air and soil temperatures, etc. Thanks again. Your name is familiar, I think you've helped me on other topics! Donna

"Our monthly average temperatures never get below about 50F."

Obviously they do, otherwise you would not be listed as a USDA zone 8.

No. That's wrong. The USDA zones are defined in terms of how cold it gets in the winter. The average annual extreme minimum temperature. Not the average temperature anytime of the year. I used to live and garden in the PNW. I live and garden now in central Texas. My USDA garden zone is identical to what it used to be, even though the gardening climates in the two places are hugely different.

Thinking about summer gardening on the basis of USDA garden zone is misplaced. The USDA garden zone is much more appropriate for thinking about what plants can be considered perennials, and can survive winter. That's why those zones are formally called "plant hardiness zones". There has been some discussion of that in these forums. People who identify themselves only on the basis of their USDA hardiness zone aren't really being specific about their summer gardening climate.

I'm in USDA zone 8, and my monthly average temps don't get below 50F.

Dan, I think you are just not explaining yourself very well. What do you mean by "average monthly temperature"? Is your average monthly temperature the same in June as it is in January? And why would that be important to this discussion?

It is very well documented regarding the conditions hot season veggies like tomatoes need to thrive. Planting out in too cold an ambient air temperature as well as too cold a soil temperature will stunt growth and retard development. If both are cold enough, it can even kill the plant. Protecting from freezes is not gonna be much help if the soil temperature is not sufficiently warm enough to encourage growth. And that really doesn't have much bearing on last frost date - the two are only very tangentially related.

It is way too early. I start my tomato seeds around the last week of March for plant out in early May.

"last frost date has nothing to do with the timing of when it is appropriate to plant out tomato starts. "

I would disagree. Tomatoes have almost no issue with cold air as long as there is no frost, and warmer soil is important, but in the absense of measuring with a thermometer, last frost date is a good gauge of soil temperature and issues can be minimized with proper hardening off. 2-3 weeks after last frost is a good ballpark in my climate.

Tomatoes are not heat loving plants like peppers or eggplant and grow wonderfully in the spring, and are resilient when exposed to cold... as long as there is no frost and the plants were properly hardened off.

From the National Gardening Association: "The first thing to understand about when to plant tomatoes is that tomatoes are warm weather plants. While many people try to plant tomatoes as early as possible, the fact of the matter is that this method will not make an earlier producing tomato and also exposes the tomato plant to unexpected late frosts, which could kill the plant. Beyond this, tomatoes will not grow in temperatures below 50 F. (10 C.). The first sign that it is the proper planting time for tomatoes is when the night time temperature stays consistently above 50 F./10 C. Tomato plants will not set fruit until the night time temperature reaches 55 F./10 C., so planting tomato plants when the night time temperature is at 50 F./10 C. will give them enough time to mature a bit before fruiting. The second sign for knowing when do you plant tomatoes is the temperature of the soil. Ideally, the soil temperature for the best time for planting tomatoes is 60 F. (16 C.). A quick and easy way to tell if the soil is warm enough for planting tomato plants is to thrust a finger in the soil. If you cannot keep your finger all the way in the soil for a full minute without feeling uncomfortable, the soil is most likely too cold for planting tomatoes. Of course, a soil thermometer helps too.

From Harvesttotable.com - How to Grow Tomatoes: "Tomatoes are a warm-season annual that grow best when the soil temperature is at least 55°F (12°C) and the air temperature ranges between 65° and 90°F (18-32°C). Tomatoes require from 50 to more than 90 warm, frost-free days to reach harvest."

They may grow "wonderfully" in the spring where you are but most recommendations you will find are to not plant out until May at the earliest. That's about as early as you will find soil temperatures at the appropriate level. And they DO need heat. Growing tomatoes in the Puget Sound area of the PNW is a real challenge because we have very cool mild summers, often never exceeding the mid 80's, and only very short season, early maturing varieties flourish here.

Consider that tomatoes originated from Central and South America and that very warm climate, subtropical climate offers the conditions they prefer. As one tomato grower states “Tomatoes like weather that starts out warm, gets warmer and stays warm.”

That's been my experience with tomatoes. I plant out early, after frost, in late February or early March but before it warms up a lot. The tomatoes don't grow fast, but they stick it out. When the weather warms, they explode. They weren't harmed by low, but not freezing, temps. Perhaps they're spending their time developing a good root system.

That's an interesting point, that tomatoes aren't fundamentally heat loving plants. I always lumped them with pepper and eggplants, which are, but in fact that's correct. They like warmth, but really are not comfortable when it gets very hot.

I should add that my incentive for planting out tomatoes early is to make room under my lights for the less cold-tolerant summer plants. Once the tomatoes are out and gone, that's when my peppers, eggplants, squash, and melons get planted. Yes, putting the tomatoes out early probably doesn't assure an earlier crop, but for me it does assure more other crops!

Far too early in our zone 7. Try last week of Feb./1st week of March.

Dave

Not sure who you're talking to, Dave. I said I planted out tomatoes in the last week of February or early March. Possibly a bit early for you but works fine for me.

Gardengal, did I not say I plant in May, and that soil temperatures are important? Did you read what I wrote?

The standard advice is to plant tomatoes 2-3 weeks after the last frost. It IS good advice and advice given by many seed companies. Obviously measuring soil temperature and looking at night temperatures can be more accurate. But if you plant your tomatoes 2-3 weeks after the last frost here, I can promise your tomatoes will not fail because of cold weather.

Yes, tomatoes like warm, but not hot. And that certainly proves to be the case with gardeners down south.

And I recall Sey over on the tomato forum having great success with early planting in the PNW.

The fact is, it works. Even Johnny's recommends using a row cover and planting early for the earliest harvest.

So, quote all you want -- I still disagree with this rigidity planting tomatoes. They are very tolerant of season pushing if done correctly.

I am not going to argue with you. My average last frost date is March 27th so that would suggest by your methods that tomatoes are safe to plant out midApril. They are NOT and most local sellers of started plants are just then starting to offer them for sale, typically with caution signs. Soils here will not be warm enough to encourage growth on any warm season veggie for at least another month

And if you search on growing tomatoes in the PNW, you will find countless articles about the difficulties in growing them in this cool sumer climate and the need to select short harvest varieties for successful cropping. This is extremely well recognized in this area and is something that I am extremely familiar with - I teach basic gardening classes as well as growing my own tomatoes (and other veg) for more than 30 years. Obviously, the vagaries of specific climates elsewhere will come into play but if one adheres to the need for both sufficiently warm nighttime air temperatures and proper soil temperatures, then the risk is modified regardless of where you are located.

My average last frost date is March 27th so that would suggest by your methods that tomatoes are safe to plant out midApril. They are NOT

Why are they not safe? Whether they would immediately thrive, and whether it is safe and they would not die, are two different things. What do you envision is going to kill them? Cold soil, cool nights? Definitely not in my experience! Nor the experience of any poster I have seen on here. They may sit there unhappy for a little while, but that is not the same as it not being safe and your plants are going to die. And typically they take off faster than the later planted transplants. And in the Fall, my plants thrive and produce until frost, long after the nights have been dipping into the 30's for weeks. Tomatoes die by frost. They are not going to die because some nighttime lows are too low, or the soil is too cold weeks after last frost, unless they were not healthy transplants properly hardened off. Of course, if you have very wet weather, that may be a separate issue.

You can't believe everything you read on the Internet; a lot of things about gardening are beliefs regurgitated over and over without being challenged. One important thing that I learned in my few years being active and contributing to this forum is that it is often beneficial to challenge what you "can't" do in gardening, and many conventional ideas of what will not work are absolutely not correct. This is what makes forums like this so valuable IMHO. Tomatoes are quite possibly one of the most resilient and adaptable things you could plant in your garden IME.

For instance, I have lettuce alive in my garden right now. We have had several weeks in the teens and lows down to 5F on two nights. By any conventional piece of information you read on the Internet, my lettuce should be long dead. It is not.

I would absolutely encourage and challenge you to ignore those articles and plant out a couple plants early as an experiment, and challenge whether your beliefs are true. Of course, you can do things like providing row covers -- a very simple thing to do -- which will absolutely enhance your success level.

Taking advantage of season extending is a great thing; I suggest you go over to Johnny's and see how they do it in Maine, where they are constantly pushing the envelope with wonderful results.

"Not sure who you're talking to, Dave. I said I planted out tomatoes in the last week of February or early March. Possibly a bit early for you but works fine for me."

Sorry, was responding to the OP.

Dave

I too have seen it regurgitated on the internet that tomatoes shouldn't be put out until air temps are over 50F. Yes, if you put them out at lower temperatures, they won't grow fast, but as long as it is above freezing, they won't be harmed. That's just a fact. Let's not confuse plant survival safety with plant growth rate.

Again, let's also be careful about "average last frost date". On that date, you can flip a coin as to whether you'll get a frost after that. That's what the caution signs are about. People buying starts are possibly unaware of the frost intolerance of tomatoes.

Yes, when I say last frost date, I mean you look at the weather and determine when the last frost was and whether there is any reasonable chance of one being in the future... not picking a date off a chart. If you are looking at a chart it should at least be 90% last frost date, not 50%.

It's sort of a separate discussion about how last frost dates should be used. If you have a lot of plants, and protection is hard because there are so many, you're gambling with your whole crop. If, on the other hand, you only have a few plants, they're small, easily coverable, and protection is easier. But you have to know that you need to protect them.

I've planted out several tomatoes around the average time of last frost, in full knowledge of the risk I was taking. A week later, there was a one-night hard freeze. I put some bricks around them and threw a tarp and a blanket over them. No sweat (and no ice). They were fine, and went on to be highly productive.

So if you need to move 'em out, but you're prepared to protect them, go for it. As I said, getting them out early is understood not to make harvest earlier, but there can be other factors at play.

I start mine on March 28 and set them in the garden as hardened plants about May 9 or 10...works ok for me. Yes, I have been known to cover them up on an unseasonable cold night some years...usually not needed even then.

I'll be starting mine on March 20 and transplant out around May 1 weather permitting. I like to get them out as early as is practical because I want them to set as much fruit as they can before 90+ degree heat shuts down fruit set. Last year fruit set got shut down about June 8 when we had 3 straight weeks of highs in the 90s and lows in the 70s. Luckily we had a cool spell in early July and they put on a real nice second flush.

I think what the discussion is about here is what determines best plant-out times for tomatoes. No question that tomatoes won't survive frost. But the issue has become whether cold weather (above freezing) is detrimental to tomatoes.

Oh, let's not compare calendar dates. That depends entirely on where you are. My own optimal calendar dates are going to be totally irrelevant to the OP.

I like to plant out at just about exactly 6 weeks from seed starting Why? It's because they get very leggy very fast every day after 6 weeks.

if plant them out in wall o waters you can plant them out a month early.

I am in southern NJ and don't start tomato seedlings until at least mid march. If you only have a few plants you can protect them during a cold snap. I usually have a few 50' rows so I wait until no chance of frost . I'll start tomatoes mid March and peppers about two weeks after that.

Hey Happy, I used to start my peppers after my tomatoes, but I've learned that they should actually be started at the same time - or even sooner than tomatoes! My peppers were always so scrawny at setting out time - duh!

Linda

I start tomatoes and peppers the same day also.

I start my peppers and eggplants 3 or 4 weeks before my tomatoes. It works for me.

My advice to the Op is talk to other people in your area and ask them when they plant tomatoes outside, call the local extension office and ask them as well. Start your tomatoes 6 to 8 weeks before the plant out date. Nobody knows when to plant stuff like the locals in your area do!

My average last frost date April 25th. By May 9th, there is only a 10% chance of frost. I usually put my plants out sometime during the first week in May. I have only had to cover my plants to protect them from frost one time. Always check your weather forecast before planting out, just in case.

I just got an e-mail from groworganic.com , they have a free planting calculator...you punch in your first and last frost dates and it tells you when to start your seeds. I did mine, and it is pretty accurate...

In the OP's question...is it too soon? My answer would be along these lines..do you have adequate artificial light to support the plants? If not, then you will get spindly, weak , plants. To me...that's the bottom line...when can you plant that will HELP the plant, vs. planting and seeing it get weak? To me....a lot depends on your light setup.

Usually people stagger there tomatoe planting, or if you beat the season, great or have a greenhouse. No one is right, no one is wrong. I’ve had success and failure trying to beat a season. Just make sure your plants are sturdy enough and you have back up.

You need to think about two things. (1) How big do you want them to be when you plant them out? I plant mine at the end of January, and in three weeks, at 80F, they are 4 inches tall, and they are now planted out, as of yesterday. No reason why you couldn't keep them indoors until they were much bigger, but you're going to be potting up a lot, and you could end up putting out foot-tall plants. I shoot for four inches. Also, keep in mind that they'll grow slower if cooler. (2) When is the soil temperature going to be adequate? Not just last frost. Tomatoes do not like cold soil. Soil temps should be above 60F in daytime at plantout, and in New York City, it might be that by May 1. My soil temps actually rarely get below 60F.

Good heavens. This post was from 4 years ago, and answered with a non-answer? Stale. I usually try to avoid stale posts.

Great answer and descriptions daninthedirt. Yes this is four years old! I completely forgot about this post. Imagine my surprise at getting an email. Thanks again. This year I'm not doing anything except hummingbird plants/flowers in my VegTrug.

Oh my goodness. The OP is still around! Glad to have you still here. Less stale than I was figuring.

Yes, I am still around! Glad for your responses. How is Texas? Unusual weather there to say the least.

We often have people around here who post questions, and then just disappear. It is satisfying to have forum neighbors who stick around! Yes, it has been a battle to preserve plants in our once-in-a-century freeze. Tarps seem to work, but you end up with flat plants for a while.

Soil temps are the real problem trying to grow tomatoes here in Phx.

daninthedesert said: "My soil temps actually rarely get below 60F." The soil temp where I want to plant the seedlings I started Jan 1st is 47° this morning. By the time the soil temp gets to 60° the air temp is in the 90's. It's a tough battle to win. sob sob

Edited to add that I too generally do not respond to stale dated posts. This one is so close to my heart I couldn't resist. I just don't understand why folks don't just start a new thread. hmmmmm. Why?

Hi MaryMcP - I would love to checkout Arizona - Someday when this insanity is hopefully all over. Anyhow, this is asked with the utmost respect, but when you say "...why folks don't just start a new thread" I'm not sure what you mean since daninthedirt answered my original post with additional information, albeit four years later! Better late than never, right?!!

MaryMcP, you make important points. Soil temp can be a killer, especially in hot climates, because in hot climates. our tomato growing season is short. By late June, I'm all done for the summer. I chuckle when I hear northerners taking pride in getting their first tomato by the Fourth of July. Getting tomatoes in the ground outside for us is a race against the eventual heat.

That said, the Syngenta tool says that the average soil temp in Phoenix on March 1 is 60F. Pretty much like for me. So some years are harder than others.

As to why folks don't start new threads, and instead glom onto archaic ones, should we suspect it's shyness? Now, I answered that original thread because I didn't notice that it was old. Is this your question, or someone else's question? Some resurrected threads here are old enough that the people that started them are probably well composted.

summerlee and dan - this particular thread had a good result from Hu-433431988 posting to it 4 years after the last post. But lately there have been a lot of old posts coming up, one I remember resurrected an 11 year old thread. One of the responders in that thread indeed has crossed the rainbow bridge. There is a fairly new one about Hopseed or Oleander originally posted in Jan 2011 WITH pictures. This new poster is asking for pictures. I just don't get what he thinks will be different 10 years later.

Then there is "Anyone Growing Plumeria" from 2005 for crying out loud. Why not just start a new thread???

Rant done. Just a pet peeve.

That's a well-deserved rant. I wish more people got the message. But again, I think it is shyness that makes people want to glom onto ancient posts. That is, people are looking for someone to hide behind. No, no! This isn't MY post! Someone else is responsible for it! I'm just using it.

If you have a question, and it hasn't been addressed recently, then take ownership of it and ASK.

Posting a comment to answer an ancient question is of value only if it is a really novel answer. Alternatively, one can post a "People have wondered about this, and I finally figured out why ... ."

Now, having said all that, we can kick ourselves for not starting a new thread on this!

Hahhahah - I think I'll do that, on soil temps, and see what shakes out. I posted to Arizona Gardening.

I plant out 2 tomatoes near my last frost date; assuming the weather forecast is promising. Then every couple/few days I plant out more. I plant the variety first that ripens quickest of those I plant. My opinion is that If I get my first tomato on day X that I don't need a half dozen that same day. In the past by June 1 I had all of tomatoes planted except since I grow from seed I have plenty as a backup.

The past couple of years I've been holding back some planting spots and setting out tomato seedlings as late as July 4. From the late starts I get a rush of large tomatoes from plants that haven't started to blight. In September!