General Schvantzkoph wrote in
news
I'm going to plant tomatoes from seed this year rather than buy
plants. I'd also like to have them ready by the middle of July which
is about 6 weeks earlier then usual (I live in Massachusetts). My plan
is to start them indoors in peat pots and then start transplanting in
late April. I'll put a few plants in the ground each week until the
danger of frost has passed, I figure I'll have a massive surplus of
plants so I can afford to waste some, if the earliest get killed I'll
just replace them. My question is how many weeks before I do my first
planting should I start the seeds? Should I stagger when I put the
seeds in pots or can I just let some of the plants stay in pots for an
extra month?

BTW I've decided to do all heirlooms this year, mostly Russian
varieties like the Paul Robeson (I couldn't resist this, I figured if
I was going to plant Russian tomatoes they might as well be commie
tomatoes), Orange Russian and the Alaska (Aljaska). Anyone have any
experience with these varieties?


I had a tomato planted in a 5 gallon bucket a few winters ago. They'll
grow, but that plant was all foilage and produced 3 very small tomatoes.
I think the problem was planting too early, so when it wanted to set
out fruit it was too cold yet.

However, I've heard reports here that even if you start your plants a
month early, they'll produce fruit when the others do. (Something with
sunlight and temperature, I guess.)

You may want to check out hybrids such as Early Girl and see if they do
what you want. I'm going to, college graduation's going to play havoc
with gardening this summer.

Puckdropper
--
Wise is the man who attempts to answer his question before asking it.

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