Have You Started Your Tomato Seeds Yet?
By Michelle Fabio
Here at Tomato Casual, we’ve talked before about when you should start sowing your tomato seeds, and now the time is finally here (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, of course).
As a reminder, the most important date you need to know is the expected date of the last frost in your area.
Your plants should be ready to be planted outside about two to three weeks after that, which means that you’ll want to start your seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before you’ll want to transplant them so they have a good running start.
If you don’t know when your area’s last frost generally occurs, a great resource is The Old Farmer’s Almanac Frost Chart for the United States; for the UK, you can find Frost Zones here.
Remember that you can follow Michael’s tomato growing season here at Tomato Casual, but we also want to know—are you growing tomatoes this year?
And have you planted them yet?
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
I should add that if you’re just starting seeds now, you might want to supplement with some plants so you can have tomatoes all summer long–these seeds would provide a late crop.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Guilty as charged!
My next post will mention that my first seeds of the season just got their start in life last week. I’m such a bad tomato parent.
April 5th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Nah Michael, this is an “experiment”–it’s good to at least try out different planting schedules, right? That way you can see when tomatoes in your particular garden do their best
May 15th, 2009 at 10:24 am
I managed to kill every seedling I started this year… and last year… and the one before that.
I guess is off to the nursery for seedlings again.
I’m beginning to think I have a black thumb.