QUESTION: I have some tomato transplants from spring that have not been planted. They are tall and skinny, but still look healthy. Is it too late to plant them now?

Ideally, healthy tomato transplants should be planted in mid to late April or early May (or after the last frost date in your area). To wait until late June to get the transplants in the ground is asking for trouble, but if you have the space to plant and the time to coddle them through the summer heat, you might as well try. Plant them deep, or dig a trench and lay the stem on its side with the leaves at the top of the stem above the soil. Provide a dose of water-soluble fertilizer, water them well and keep the soil moist.
Planting in the heat of summer, you are likely to encounter problems with insects, slower growth, delayed blooming and soil that dries out too quickly for the young plants to grow well. But if the plants pull through the worst of it, you may be rewarded with a small crop of fall tomatoes.
If you’re late to start a garden this year and still want to have home-grown vegetables and herbs, consider these quick-start choices that should come up right away from seed: cucumbers, bush beans, summer squash, beets, carrots, scallions, basil, dill. Keep the bed moist after you sow.
And look ahead to fall when you can plant lettuce, turnip and mustard greens, cabbage, spinach, kale, and other favorite cool-season vegetables.
Filed under: Grow a Garden | Tagged: planting, problems with tomatoes, summer, summer vegetables, Tomatoes | 2 Comments »