Early Tomatoes – Start Growing Tomatoes Early This Spring
When spring approaches, most gardeners can’t wait to get started with the garden. Once we do, it seems like the wait for that first tomato takes forever. So the obvious question is what can be done to get those first tomatoes out of the garden earlier than usual. It can be done, and here are a few tips to get started early on those tomatoes.
First, it’s a good idea to choose varieties that do well in the colder weather for those first tomatoes of the spring. There are a number of varieties that have been bred for the colder weather, and a few are hardy enough to handle a light frost. In addition, they will set fruit in colder temperatures than the traditional tomato varieties.
Some varieties that have been bred for use in Alaska and in colder climates include Kimberly, Polar Baby, and Polar Beauty. Other options include Early Challenge and Season Starter from Park Seeds. Check to see the planting dates base on your hardiness zone.
No matter what variety of tomato you choose, the next thing you need to do is to keep the tomato plants warmed up, both to protect the young plants from late frost damage, and to encourage faster growth and the setting of the fruit. This can be done in a couple of ways.
Growing Early Tomatoes in Containers: This approach give you much more control, but is best applied to just a few plants targeted at early production. There’s a number of alternatives to explore in containers, from single plant solutions to large ground containers.
Hanging Tomato Planters: The Topsy Turvy Upside Down Tomato Planter is very popular these days, and it has a couple of advantages for early growth. First, if there is a late frost, usually the plant is not that large yet, and the whole planter can be taken into the garage or a cover patio for protection. Additionally,they can be hung in a well lit, warm space to encourage early growth. I’ve had tomatoes that were the same variety planted at the same time that were bearing fruit 2 weeks earlier than those planted in the ground. These planters are best suited for smaller plants, typically a determinant variety.
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Container Grown Tomatoes: A similar approach can be taken using a container on the ground. I’ve used an Earthbox planter for this, and it has the advantage of having casters so it too can easily be put inside the garage for protection. The Earthbox also has a plastic mulch covering which is reversible, with the dark side being the best for use in early spring to warm up the soil.
Warming the Soil in the Garden: The other alternative is to grow the tomatoes directly in the garden, but to give them some help. One very popular approach is to use Wall o Waters. These are basically vinyl plastic sleeves connected together to form a wall around the tomato plant. You fill them with water, and the thermal mass of the water serves to absorb heat during the daylight hours, and keep the tomato plant warmer at night, something like a miniature greenhouse. I’ve seen some folks who try to do the same thing using a ring of empty soda bottles that are arranged around the
If you choose to use the Wall o Waters (or some of the other similar products that are available like the Tomato Teepees) you might want to try filling them by inverting an empty 5 gallon bucket over the tomato plant, putting the Wall o Water around that, and then filling the individual tubes with water. It’s also a common practice to add a little bleach to the water in the tubes to keep down the algae growth. With the proper care and storage these cloches can last for several seasons.
Another good practice is to warm the soil with a mulch. Recently there are some red mulches that are supposed to be great in accelerating tomato growth, they are not too expensive and can work well to keep the week growth down as well.
Finally there is some literature that suggests that using fish emulsion on your plants can give them a couple of degrees of frost hardiness as well.
Give a few of these ideas a try, and you will be the first in your neighborhood to be enjoying tomatoes fresh from the garden this spring.
Filed under Growing Tomatoes by John
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