I did the second part this past spring time ; i.e. using black plastic to warm up the soil. An when I wanted to plant out , just cut out a circle ( !0" dia.) for a hole. I believe that soil temperature is more important or AS IMPORTANT as air temperature. Certain nutrient won't be available to the roots ( or roots won't be able to absorb them) at low soil temperature. I give an example : In the floral industry, after they cut the flower, the give them a good drink of WARM water with water soluble nutrient in it, Then they refrigerate them in walking coolers, in cold water. Amazingly most flowers stay fresh for weeks. Of course they age naturally after a while. So this observation supports my opinion on the importance of soil temperature.

WOW:
I have not used it but I have a pretty goo idea (from heat transfer engineering angle) how it works:

---- 1- provide a wind barrier : Object in open air lose more hear and at faster rate when wind//air blows/moves over it.

---2 - Insulation: when the plant and the soil around it is warmed up during the day (by air temperature and sunshine), the WOW works as a partial insulator, by not letting air movement and cooling off.

----3 - Heat Storage: Naturally, the water in the pockets absorb some solar heat. It is not that they just constantly accumulate heat, They also lose some of the heat gained, ESPECIALLY from the outer exposed surface, as the air moves over it. I can imagine that in a windy day WOW will store very little heat.

So, I admit that it can aide the small plant keep warmer n
than if it were naked. For this purpose I have made cages from rabbit fence (10" dia, ~ 20" tall) wrapped with bubble wrap. Now if you cover the top also, you should get a bigger bang for the buck.

PORTABLE HOOP>
I have made two of them : w=2.5ft ; L= 5.0ft, H = 45".
Right now I am using one of them, sheltering my potted pepper plants ( see picture).

EARLY PLANTING:
Around the time of your LFD, keep an eye on the long term weather forecast. This way you can figure out when to get it started.

interesting seysonn, thank you.

there are various ways extending front end of the season , row covers, cold frames, floating row covers with some heat element inside, cut off gal water jars...
I know Tanya has experimented with hot pile of wood chips serving as bottom surface for seedling trays and containers in hoop house...
In zone 7 and up planting seeds right in the snow I.e. winter sowing is a good way to skip on indoor set up. I think Trudy who popularized this method lives in NY.

I am in NJ and I basically plant mine out by mothers day (which is a week or so away from end of April). I make sure that I keep mine covered with floating row cover around the tomato cages. That works very well. This past year though we had snow in the middle of april... so I make sure I have a second set of seedlings to replace the first set in case we have the odd snow.

This year I am going to add black fabric as I am hoping that will help with the fungal diseases.

Growing Early Tomatoes

How To Start Tomato Plants Early In Your Garden (video clip)

So, you want early tomatoes... Huh? (video clip)

Lindalana,

In zone 7 and up planting seeds right in the snow I.e. winter sowing is a good way to skip on indoor set up. I think Trudy who popularized this method lives in NY

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread but I was wanting to ask if anyone starts seeds in the ground by either planting early or even before winter starts. My most productive tomato this year was a volunteer. When I found it it was about the size of my starts but it has produced 10-fold. I was thinking of trying it out but I'd like some more input. I am in zone 5 and we had one nasty, cold, late spring. ie: no fruit on my fruit trees at all.

Starting in the ground, also sometimes called "winter sowing" is done with a lot of vegetables. mostly cool crops. It can be done with tomato seeds too. That is how you get the so-called volunteers. But to me it is too risky , unpredictable and too slow/late.
I am in zone 7b/8a. I plant 8"-10" plants around April 20 and have tough time to get ripe fruits by July 10. My volunteers come up like in June.

YMMV

Seysonn,

Thanks for your reply. I guess I have far too low expectations as I am happy to have ripe fruit before frost!

I'm starting 1 or 2 months earlier next year as I just received my new LED grow lights, enough to grow about 12 plants.

milehighgirl wrote: > My most productive tomato this year was a volunteer.

I'm sure it was, and it makes a lot of sense: IT'S THE MOST EARLIEST POSSIBLE TOMATO IN YOUR GARDEN.

BUT, I read on the Web:

> Volunteer tomatoes that sprout in the garden or compost can be the carrier of various other diseases (though not late blight). Always remove volunteer tomatoes as they appear, to prevent other tomato afflictions. [ tomato-troubles faq’s: ]

> The fungus (Early Blight) survives on infected debris in the soil, on seed, on volunteer tomato plants and other solanaceous hosts…

Prevention & Treatment: … Use crop rotation, eradicate weeds and volunteer tomato plants… [ Tomato Diseases ]

I had volunteers in my garden, and I envy them for how healthy they look, but I always removed them because they popped up in the wrong place and I didn't know what variety they were. Now I know about the diseases they might carry.

seysonn wrote: > But to me it is too risky…

seysonn, what do you mean by “risky ?”

This post was edited by Daniel_NY on Fri, Oct 10, 14 at 8:41

seysonn, what do you mean by “risky ?”
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Daniel, by "risky" I mean that I have to take chance on when they will come up , if they come up. I want sure fire. That is why I start from seed inside (Or buy plant). When I was in GA, I did experiment direct sowing and it worked but they were like one month behind in average.

Foot Note:
But the thing is altough ATL_GA and SEAT-WA have the same LFFD (also FFD) and zone number, but have totally different weather pattern. A lot of peple do not recognize this.
So then zone numbers are not relevant when it comes to summer warm crops gardening. I think ATL_GA is in heat zone 7 or 8. Here in this part of WA our heat zone is "1", a lonely number: -)

Milehighgirl, check out Winter Sowing forum FAQ, it is very very good. Wintersown.org also distributes seeds as well. For my zone 5 WS tomatoes does not result in early enough ripening but for warmer zone it is a boon.
I have done lots of WS with perennials in the past and it is super easy to do.
Thing is for indoor set up not only you have to to invest in stuff but there are also quite a few tricks to grow seedling so it is able to set fruits more, earlier, stockier and all that. Just germinating your seed and sticking it under lights does not result in best plants. Winter sowing takes care of all that. People often use " hunk of seedling" method too, where you plant a bunch and let strongest ones to develop. It is really fun.

Daniel, thanks for posting links on WOW. Some other places have fascinating discussions on merits of WOW if googled, can't post links here. Am hoping my personal experience will help someone- setting up WOW is huge PITA. Bucket method works, after you still need some support inside because WOW does not keep shape and will fall. Do not buy red ones, they are more pricey and not better. If you go with lots of tomatoes, better choice would be row covers etc. Do not plant 4" tomatoes, after you lost control of temps and moisture, damping off is fair game. The bigger transplant the better will survive, pencil thick stem is a must. Removing first flowers in zone 5 during transplant is not better. JMO obviously.
Oh, yeah, and I really would suggest testing your soil before adding any phosphorus to it or any other stuff. Granted one can kinda rely on weed pressure, i.e. if your lawn has tons of dandelions you probably need more calcium or if you have broadleaf weed pressure like plantain you are missing on phosphorus but testing is better.

The bucket method works for me but this is a WAY different climate than, well, anywhere else. Toms get started outdoors under heat and glass in mid December and go into the ground in late February. The sun is hot and bright enough to preclude lights and the buckets go on at dusk on nights when the weather forecast is iffy. It works, but we don't have to contend with wicked cold, just barely-killing-cold.

The flip side is we get wicked-killing-hot.

I'd be very reluctant to suggest buckets for seriously cold low temps, but if you stack them as doubles you get added dead air insulation. Another of their pluses is they store away well. Shouldn't a combo of buckets and WOW work well?

I have come up with an alternative to WOW>

I bake an about 10-12" diameter cage from rabit fence.
Then wrap it with bubble wrap. The bigger the bubble the better it is . I call it WOA( wall of air)
Here is a picture.

For me its not about starting earlier - its about waiting the weird weather out or compensating for it once plants are out.

Last frost date here is already pretty bad IMO - mid June, even when day time temps will have been in the 70s to 80s for over a month by then.

But this past year, temps stayed below freezing at night ALL THE WAY TO THE LAST WEEK OF JUNE.

And then night temps almost never get up to 60, they stay in the 50s all summer. In mid July we had a high of 105F and a low of 44F. Mid-may - high of 87F, low of 29F.

Now despite that my maters and peppers and eggplants have done pretty well, for having been planted mid or end of July from leftover big-box stock, and not mulched until 2 or 3 weeks later.

But for me, "starting earlier" next year means ... how do I keep these puppies alive when the nights stay so cold for so long?

I'm thinking put 'em out Mid-May and then wall o' water and blankets at night and hoping for the best. But the daytime temps get high enough that Wall o' Water is going to be a pain because I don't see how I can leave them on there if its going to hit 80s. Sun is fierce here.

Yes, it's a pickle.

But this past year, temps stayed below freezing at night ALL THE WAY TO THE LAST WEEK OF JUNE.
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Where are you located , zenso ? f you then plan plant out in July, your earliest plant would produce a ripe fruit in September ?

Here (in PNW) we are almost worry free of frost as of early April. But temperature will be just raw cold all April well into early May. But with min hoops, WOW ,,, we can start early

I think in that kind of climate you are, I would've considered putting up a low tunnel or something.

Sierra Nevadas. High Desert. And I think I DID start getting fruits in September.

I think I will have to plant short season varieties on top of everything else. Also, stagger seedlings in case everything frost kills.

In order to try to counteract not being able to grow that much, that well, outdoors, I've been working on putting the Sun in my closet. I've been cursing the developer who put 15A fuses in all the bedrooms, because that limits me to 10 fluorescents in my room!

Linda, I looked at WOWs and wondered how difficult they would be. Seysonn, I thought about bubble wrap. I wonder if it would work in my neck of the woods. I have a question. Do you mostly container garden? How do we keep the soil warm? Will bubble wrap be sufficient? I'd love to start a few weeks earlier.

Sharonie, WOW really not a big deal if you know it is not going to be stable. Putting bucket upside down and refilling each tube around it does the trick. I put tomato cages into mine as I start with open ¨teepee¨ to begin with. It works for me. Some people do bamboo ¨teepee¨ which works as well. Then you can do closed easier. I might do bamboo next year as I am hoping to start April 20 instead of my usual April 26. I love using them. For the bed with peppers and eggplants I will be using floating row covers next year.
Getting soil prewarmed with el cheapo landscape fabric is a must for me. I like el cheapo from dollar store since I only need it for about a month. Also it is imperative for me to use cold treatment for seeds as well as choose varieties that set fruit in cold weather well to get my earliest fruits. If I have more WOW I would put more plants in it. Overall I achieve not only earlier ripe tomatoes, but plants with WOW have longer flowering season, produce more and even now have more greenies on it in the end of the season than ones that were planted in regular for me time. Currently I have 32 WOW and am planning to get few more next year. Takes me few hours to set them up but then I have done it for several years now.
Description of cold treatment by Ami, he is one knowledgeable gardener.
Ever wondered how commercial seedling providers get these beautiful, stalky, plants with thick stems to market? It's called the cold treatment and has been going on at commercial greenhouses for over 30 years. Here's how they do it.

This was taken out of the book "Greenhouse Tomatoes, Lettuce & Cucumbers" by S.H. Wittwer & S. Honma where they recommend 'Cold Treatment' for hardening off tomato seedlings.
The cold treatment should be started just as the first true leaves emerge, whether the seedlings are still in seed rows or pricked-off. Air and soil temperatures should be lowered to 52 to 56 deg F for ten days to three weeks. A ten to twelve day cold treatment is adequate during periods of good sunlight. Three weeks are usually necessary in the fall and early winter when most of the days are cloudy and plant growth is slow. The amount of cold during the ten-day to three week period is more important than the time of day in which it is given. Cold exposure during either the day or night, or both, is effective. Night temperatures of 52 to 56 deg F are recommended when the days are sunny and partly cloudy.
Following the cold treatment, night temperatures should be raised to 58 to 62 deg F. Cool daytime temperatures (60 to 62 deg F) should be maintained in cloudy dull weather. On bright sunny or partly cloudy days, temperatures of 65 to 75 deg F accompanied by good ventilation are suggested.
Tomato plants properly exposed to a cold treatment develop large cotyledons and thick stems, with fewer leaves formed before the first flower cluster, up to double the number of flowers in the first, and often the second clusters, and higher early and total yields.

Basically this cold treatment is used to give healthier, more stalky seedlings that will give increased yields and earlier harvests. In regards to light intensity and duration they had this to say.
The tomato is a facultative short day plant which flowers and fruits earliest if the day is not extended beyond 12 hours by artificial light. Young tomato plants do not need the light intensities of full sunlight. Where there is no overlapping of leaves, light saturation is reached at intensities from 2000 to 3000 foot candles, or about one-fifth to one-third the intensity of direct sunlight at high noon. If artificial lights are used, an intensity of at least 500 foot candles should be provided at the leaf surface. Tests with fluorescent fixtures reveal that Wide Spectrum Gro Lux is slightly superior to cool white.
Hope this helps. Ami

Zensojorner, sounds like quite a climate! I would just start small and experiment which method will be most useful for you. I tend to grow far more seedlings that I need just for this reason LOL

Yeah, I'm looking Florida-wards ... hope to be there before the end of the next growing season.

Linda thanks. I have this vision of the WOW collapsing in on my plants. I will take all this into consideration. Great info about artificial lights and cool temps. Thanks a million!
Sharon