Hi Creek-side,

What's wrong with starting them right after you get home? In zone 5, you'll probably plant out around memorial day, right? One week won't make that much difference, if you plant them on the 23rd and most of them sprout around the 27-29th, they'll be about 8 weeks old on memorial day, perfect age for transplanting into the garden.

I'd much rather have a nice stocky slightly younger tomato plant than one that got leggy under plastic. I'd also think that being under plastic would invite disease or mold since that would hold in humidity. I like to get my seedlings off the heat mat and out from under the dome as soon as they break the growing medium surface and get good air circulation on them from a fan.

I'm in zone 6 and I won't start my tomatoes until the last week of March or the first week of April.

Betsy

This post was edited by bets on Fri, Jan 18, 13 at 10:02

Thanks for the feedback. I always have my tomatoes in the ground by the 10th of May, which is the "no danger of frost" milestone day in Iowa. I also remove the plastic as soon as the seeds poke through the surface, and I have never has any problem with mold or any kind of disease. I think what I'll do this year is prep all my flats with soil a few days ahead of time, and then I can plant all of them in an hour or so on the day before leave. I plant about 120 tomatoes. I've been thinking about building new flats anyway, so that I can have ones that fit perfectly in my grow light contraption.