Starting Tomatoes From Seeds

Let's get ready to grow!

Tomatoes are an incredibly rewarding crop to grow! Just one plant can provide a garden with unmatched beauty and ENORMOUS amounts of food. Being a warm season crop, tomato seedlings and plants need to be protected from freezing temperatures and harsh weather conditions to grow, thrive and survive. For this reason, we start tomato seeds indoors and do not plant them outside until the threat of frost in our area has passed.

Temperatures 32°F and below can easily kill or severely damage a tomato plant. Optimal temperatures for tomatoes to thrive range between 65-95°F, but plants can tolerate temperatures that are higher and lower then this range for increments of time. Consistently high or low temps are detrimental to the plants over-all performance and can cause a multitude of problems.

To set yourself up for a successful tomato growing season, start your seeds indoors or in a protected and controlled environment. Sufficient light, quality potting soil, and warmth are crucial to being successful! Starting seeds before the last threat of frost has passed will allow you to have strong, established seedlings that are ready to go in the ground when the temperatures have warmed, giving a major head start on the season and supporting a much earlier harvest. Getting this head start is especially important for gardeners with shorter seasons or for gardeners striving to grow tomato varieties that require more days to reach maturity.

We will go more into the details of early, mid and late season varieties in a separate blog, but do be mindful of the amount of days a specific variety requires to mature and the amount of frost free days your climate actually provides. You can then plan accordingly and prevent putting efforts into a plant that will die from the fa