Suzanne D. wrote:
I planted all my tomato seeds within a week or two this spring, and
planted the seedlings within a few weeks as well. Over the summer we
got tons of tomatoes, and then despite my misting the plants, our 100+
temperatures in August sort of wiped them out. The vines are still
growing, and now that temps are cooler we seem to have a little more
flowering and fruiting activity, but overall the vines just look pooped.

I am wondering if there would be any value to starting 1/2 or even 1/3
of my seeds in the spring, and starting more a month or two later, so
that I could plant some young plants very early, plant some a bit later,
and then plant some in mid-summer. I know that tomatoes generally
produce until frost, but I wonder if I would have more luck with
continuously planting new, fresh plants several times rather than doing
one big planting in the spring. Do younger tomato plants typically have
better production than older ones?
--S.

My experience is that when planting out tomatoes at different times,
they seem to 'catch up' with one another. There seems to be a
magical time (probably related to warm enough weather) when all
these plants take off. I can plant small seedlings from my grow
lights next to store bought larger tomatoes and the seedlings
inevitably catch up and rippen together with the store bought.

You might get better staggering if you select varieties that rippen
early or later.

Planting tomatoes too late may backfire if they don't have time
enough to catch up, and you wind up with a lot of green tomatoes
at the end of the season.

Sherwin