What to Do if You Planted Tomatoes Too Early

Tomatoes, originating in western South America, are not cool-season growers. The climate of their native vary is mostly equatorial and temperate. However rising them may be so thrilling that some gardeners plant tomatoes too early. 

When tomatoes are planted earlier than heat climate arrives, they undergo chilly snaps and heavy spring rains. This triggers stunted progress and extra susceptibility to ailments brought on by excessively moist situations. 

Repot Them

Say a pleasant heat entrance rolls in, and also you thought it was a great time to plant out tomatoes. However then, just a few days later, a snap freeze is on its method. It’s a standard mistake to plant tomatoes too early, and it’s simple to make when local weather patterns shift quickly. Or say you noticed your tomato stems thickening, and also you needed to get happening that crop, but it surely was method too early to your tender seedlings.

One method to deal with both state of affairs is to scoop the seedlings out of backyard beds, and pot them again up. Find containers bigger than your starter pots. Then gently elevate them from the soil with a hori hori, hand trowel, and even your fingers. 

Place them within the pots and prime them off with good soil or potting combine. Then, transfer the containers right into a sheltered space indoors or in a greenhouse. In case your tomatoes are already in containers, you may merely transfer them indoors. This provides them the time they should stave off the chilly or mature sufficient to be prepared for transplant.  

Cowl Them

One other method is to go away them within the floor. So long as they’ve some safety by way of a snap freeze, they’ll make it. This works for immature seedlings, too, as a cowl boosts the temperature and helps tomatoes produce wholesome roots. 

Frost material protects tender vegetation in gentle frosts, and an previous sheet has the identical impact. If you happen to should, lay both of those straight over your tomatoes. Nonetheless, helps preserve the fabric off the vegetation and promote the greenhouse impact inside. This makes the ambient air hotter, which makes for happier tomatoes.

You probably have a tough freeze coming, a sheet of greenhouse plastic affixed over some PVC pipe, an arched cattle panel, or picket helps is ideal. If you happen to develop in an Epic Gardenbox, there are frost covers you may embody. In-ground or Epic Gardenbox plantings profit from the Epic greenhouse attachment, which covers a 47-by-31-inch space.

As soon as the air temperature rises above 50°F (10°C), take away the duvet and let your tomato vegetation bask within the daylight. 

Plant Them Deeper

Once you plant tomatoes, it helps to plant them deeply to promote adventitious roots that stabilize younger vegetation in winds. If you happen to didn’t do that whenever you planted your seedlings, elevate them as you’d to re-pot them, and as a substitute of potting them up, dig the opening an inch deeper, and plop them again within the floor. 

This nestles the stem into the soil the place it’s hotter than the skin air. The soil may be as much as 20 levels hotter than the air or extra, and retains growing vegetation secure as they settle into their rising house. This technique is finest for too-cool climate and lightweight frosts. For onerous freezes, mix this with a canopy. 

Fertilize With Phosphorus

Chilly-stressed tomatoes can’t uptake phosphorus to develop sturdy roots. Mitigate this with a mild, natural phosphorus fertilizer. Aspect-dress the tomato plant with a tiny little bit of seabird guano, and water it in. Comply with the instructions on the bundle, utilizing not more than a half teaspoon per plant. Then water it in. 

Do that for tomatoes which are barely cold-stressed, and for people who don’t must be lifted from the soil to outlive. It’s finest to observe up with phosphorus fertilizer when the vegetation have survived a cool snap and wish slightly enhance as they enter the hotter season. 

An indication of phosphorus deficiency is purpling of the leaves. Watch for this indication to use any fertilizer, and anticipate the chilly climate to move, because it’s at all times clever to keep away from fertilizing careworn vegetation.  

Develop New Tomatoes

If you happen to depart your tomatoes out within the chilly, otherwise you plant them when they’re too younger, they generally succumb to the weather. The tip result’s sometimes seedling loss. You probably have an extended rising season, no drawback in any respect. Begin a brand new crop. Clear out your starter pots, and pop new seeds in. Place them in an space that’s at the least 70°F (21°C) with round 16 hours of vibrant gentle. 

Then wait till there are units of at the least 3-4 true leaves, and transplant them. Most tomatoes want two to a few months to supply. If you happen to’re rising cherry tomatoes, the probability of getting a great harvest is increased. In heat areas, you might even anticipate a late summer time or fall crop. 

That is much less of an possibility for cold-weather growers except they’ve sheltered areas away from the chilly to foster tomatoes till subsequent season.