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Dorothy Pohorelow
Jen Swanson wrote:This is a topic near and dear to my heart, because I have spent so much time agonizing over when to plant my tomatoes. I am relatively new to the Pacific Northwest, and grew tomatoes here for the first time last year. This year, I spent a lot of time researching and asking advice, before coming to a conclusion. Everyone you ask will have a different opinion it seems.
These are my thoughts:
* Warm season plants like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant cannot tolerate frost and stop growing when the temperature is below 50 degrees. Exposing them to too much chill will permanently stunt them. Therefore, when considering what average last frost date to use for these plants, choose a date that has a high probabilty of the last frost date having passed. Charts for average last frost date probablities for your area can be found online.
* Warm the soil with black plastic mulch for at least a few weeks before planting tomatoes.
* For the Pacific Northwest, choose early maturing varieties.
* Then, watch the weather forecast to determine when to transplant your tomatoes into the ground. If you will be covering the plants at night (which you should), you can plant when nights are projected to be at least be in the high 40's going forward. The frost cover will keep the plants warmer than they'd otherwise be. Nights need to be at least 50 to 55 degrees for tomatoes, so the cover is really important.
* Protect the plants with some sort of frost cover at night through the end of June.
I am planting my tomatoes tomorrow, after this last low 40's at night cold spell passes. I live just north of Vancouver, WA, but still in what is considered the Willamette Valley.
so what should I do?
