Comments on: Growing Tomatoes, Part II: Sprouts! http://countrylife.lehmans.com/2009/03/26/growing-part-ii/ Your online simplicity village Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:07:56 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: mmdeaton http://countrylife.lehmans.com/2009/03/26/growing-part-ii/comment-page-1/#comment-1010 mmdeaton Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:28:20 +0000 http://countrylife.lehmans.com/?p=1786#comment-1010 You do not say what zone you are in. Where I grow tomatoes, or try to, I cannot get starts into the ground before June if the ground must be 60% and the night air above 50. I plant extra- extra-early varieties, such as Glacier and Northern Delight and still I have trouble getting much production and ripe tomatoes by early September. Am I doomed to have to always grow tomatoes in a green house? My garden is at 1600 ft in what the USDA thinks is Zone 5/4. Sunset thinks it is Zone 3 or 4. We have Winter temperatures down to the teens at times, snow that goes from none one year to 7-feet the next, and summer temperatures that seldom go above 80, but when they do, it is nearly always in July and August. It rains; we are a temperate rain forest and get well over 60 inches a year. Our house is in a mountain river valley only 15-20 miles wide, so the sun takes its time getting up high enough to get light on my garden. In high summer, one side has light by 7 am, loses it again at 10, and gets it back at 2. The middle section gets it at 9 and keeps it until 3. And the shady end gets it at 9 and loses it at 1. I am determined, however, to come up with a system for growing tomatoes that works! And I can use all the help I can get. You do not say what zone you are in. Where I grow tomatoes, or try to, I cannot get starts into the ground before June if the ground must be 60% and the night air above 50. I plant extra- extra-early varieties, such as Glacier and Northern Delight and still I have trouble getting much production and ripe tomatoes by early September. Am I doomed to have to always grow tomatoes in a green house?

My garden is at 1600 ft in what the USDA thinks is Zone 5/4. Sunset thinks it is Zone 3 or 4. We have Winter temperatures down to the teens at times, snow that goes from none one year to 7-feet the next, and summer temperatures that seldom go above 80, but when they do, it is nearly always in July and August. It rains; we are a temperate rain forest and get well over 60 inches a year.

Our house is in a mountain river valley only 15-20 miles wide, so the sun takes its time getting up high enough to get light on my garden. In high summer, one side has light by 7 am, loses it again at 10, and gets it back at 2. The middle section gets it at 9 and keeps it until 3. And the shady end gets it at 9 and loses it at 1.

I am determined, however, to come up with a system for growing tomatoes that works! And I can use all the help I can get.

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