"Bill P." wrote in message
...
Hi Folks,
With all this cold weather tomato plants that I set away in the house
became very spindly. So I had to put them in the greenhouse. Result,
white leaves and plants really to tall. First truss way too high up the
stalk.
In future just to be on the safe side I will make two sowings. The first
one as usual the first week of March. The second sowing on the first of
April.

What I would like to know is, What is the latest sowing date for tomatoes
to plant out in a cold greenhouse.
What has been your latest sowing date in the past and still got a decent
crop of tomatoes?


I've got some seedlings from seeds planted on 21/4/12 which are now about 5"
tall on the kitchen windowsill.
I think that they are on track to go out on the allotment in the next 3
weeks or so.
So they would be suitable for a cold greenhouse especially in a slow
starting year like this one.

Another factor is how many trusses you allow on the plant.
If you stop at 5 or 6 trusses then the plant will probably have finished
cropping well before the end of the season.

So I would guess that any time up to the start of May would be fine.
My packet of Tumbling Tom Yellow says sow up to the first week of May and
plant out in June to crop from end of July to early October.

Realistically if you wanted you could sow more seed now.
Your crop would be later than usual but I would expect to get a reasonable
crop by the end of the season.

One other option - with your current plants, don't pinch out the shoots from
the leaf joints but encourage them to grow on.
Once they are about 5-6" long you can then cut them off and pot them up -
they should root quickly to give you extra plants.
I think at this stage this would be a lot quicker than growing from seed.

Oh, and I've seen that with commercially grown cherry tomatoes they let the
stems coil down as they pick the trusses, and then let more trusses set at
the top.
This reduces the overall height of the plant and prolongs cropping.
Only possible with spindly stems, though.
You could take out the top and grow on side shoots if height is a problem,
cropping off two or more side stems instead of a single main stem.

Tomatoes are extremely resilient; the main problem is stopping them growing
too many leaves and setting too much fruit.

Cheers

Dave R
--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

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