Don’t Start Your Tomato Plants Yet!

To borrow a line from Joan Rivers, can we talk? I’m sure many of you are thinking about starting your tomato plants in the next week or so.

Let’s see a show of hands. Yup, a lot of you are getting ready to plunk tomato seeds into flats or pots. Well, if you live in a colder climate (i.e., zone 6 or below), I have this to say: It’s. Too. Early.

I completely understand how anxious you are to get the garden going. And I also understand how much we all love our fresh tomatoes (gosh, just saying those last two words made my mouth water!).

So here’s the deal:

If you start your tomatoes earlier than 6 weeks before your last expected frost, you are doing those plants a huge disservice. The plants will become leggy and weak, and at risk of falling over and becoming decapitated (eek). The roots will start circling inside the pot. The plants go through a lot of water, which means that if you forget to water them, they will become stressed. They will also need some nutrients in order to support all of that leggy growth.

I ask you: is that a nice way to treat your plants? No!

To be honest, I used to do this. I’d start my tomato plants from seed around the first of February and I’d end up with leggy plants. So I thought perhaps I should be waiting until the middle of February. Nope, they were still leggy.

Then I waited patiently (or so I thought) until the first of March. Guess what? They were still leggy before planting time. Soon I was certain if I waited until the middle of March, that would be perfect timing. Nope again.

At that point, I thought “surely I don’t need to wait until the first of April?!” Yup. The first of April is absolutely perfect timing for growing tomatoes in a season where the average last frost is about May 10th. So that’s roughly six weeks.

I have to tell you that I’ve gone to, and worked at, plant sales that feature tomato plants along with other types of veggies. And time and time again, I would see customers passing over the smaller plants of ideal size (as in, not leggy), in favor of the tallest plants they could find.

Research has shown that the ideally-sized tomato plants will quickly catch up and surpass those taller, leggy plants once they’ve been planted out in the garden. My theory is this: why torture your tomato seedlings at the risk of stressing them out, by starting them so early just because you’re hoping to have the first ripe tomato on the block?

Why not make life easier for yourself — and your plants — by WAITING until the time is right? Why not start with smaller, healthy, strong plants instead?

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now but it just needed to be said!