"sherwin dubren" wrote in message
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My experience is that when planting out tomatoes at different times,
they seem to 'catch up' with one another.

I have noticed this too, to a certain extent, but now, as I said, all of my
vines--now 10-12 feet tall and bare of leaves on the bottom four feet--are
flopped over, breaking, spindly, and generally just wiped out. Despite
daily temperatures from 70-90, the tomatoes on them are small and few. I
have to wonder if some fresher vines that were planted three months ago
instead of six months ago might be in better condition and bearing more and
larger.

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.

That's generally not a problem around here (southern Utah), since our
growing season starts quite early, and we don't get frost until November or
December.
--S.