I realize it's early days now, but I thought I'd share these pictures. It's not a perfect comparison because these may not be the same variety. But all tomatoes in the following pictures came from the same packet of seedlings ... "Park Seeds Heirloom Rainbow Blend which includes a mix of Aunt Ruby's German Green, Dixie Golden Giant, Black from Tula, Brandywine Red, Big Rainbow, and Cherokee Purple".
And, more importantly, they were all seeded at the same time! Seeds were sowed March 11th and here is the post showing them 6 days later. First are pictures of these puny looking plants that were planted in the garden about a week ago. They survived the recent frost! But to be honest, these are pretty average looking for what I'm used to at this time of the year.
And ta da ... here are plants from that same seedling batch that I potted up and put in the greenhouse two weeks ago. Wahoo!
And for another comparison. This is the black trifele tomato plant when I bought it at the plant sale on May 16 (admittedly not too bad for a seedling) versus today (I potted it only a few days ago into the greenhouse!).
I'm going to cram as many tomatoes and peppers as I can into the greenhouse now that the seedlings are mostly out!!!
I'm shocked your tomatoes survived a frost. I've had peppers do that but never a tomato.
ReplyDeleteYes, well I did cover them all up, but it was below zero temps. I was surprised but relieved!
DeleteWhat a difference! Your plants look huge - I'll be planting mine out this week. I sowed mine two weeks later than I should have but judging by how small they are, you would think it was two months!
ReplyDeleteYes, I still have some in 4" pots and they are tiny!
DeleteI think potting up tomato seedlings makes a definite difference in their growth rate. And they do like the heat, so the greenhouse sounds like a good idea. There are parts of Oregon and Washington where they have to grow tomatoes in a greenhouse or hoop house if they want them to ripen, and their weather would be considered more temperate than Ontario or NE US. But we eventually do get the hot weather, like today!
ReplyDeleteOur weather has been quite hot here the past week or so and I thought my outdoor tomatoes would be a bit larger than they are. Truthfully, I think the greenhouse tomatoes are better now than any tomato plant I had all of last year - our weather was very cool and I really struggled with tomatoes. So pretty thrilled about these right now!
DeleteGreat tom plants, I'd second that on the greenhouse. After getting blight the first time I grew them outdoors, I'll stick to the greenhouse. Space-wise I think you just need to be careful that there's enough air circulation etc to keep them healthy
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder on air circulation. I bought a fan early in the spring due to soil getting green mold (mildew?) but things had warmed up and cleared up by the time the fan arrived in the post. So I will pop it out there now - will help with pollination too.
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