[Arid_gardener] Re: plant tomatoes early or on time?

[olin]

In the Phoenix area tomatoes will grow just fine under plastic during
the winter months but somewhat slower than in the spring out in the open
because of less light during the short winter days.  If you can plant
one gallon sized tomatoes before blooming about Feb 1 you have a better
chance of getting a good yield with mid season indeterminate types.  But
with short season determinate bushes, one may as well wait to plant out
until the end of Feb when freeze protection is usually not required.

The Phoenix area is in the low desert at about 1092 feet in USDA Cold
Hardiness Zone 9b, Sunset Zone 13,  and AZ Plant Climate Zone 5
(according to   http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1169.pdf  ).
At  2584 feet, USDA Zone 8, Sunset 12, and AZ Plant Climate Zone 4,
Tucson could be considered mid desert.  Note that these climate and
hardiness zones all use different criteria to define the zones but all
still place Phoenix and Phoenix in different zones.   It seems one could
achieve similar results in Tucson by planting about 3 weeks later but,
given Tucson's December 2001 average low of 31 deg (according to the
AZMET site) and the 22 deg recorded on Dec 26, I would hesitate to make
any recommendation for Tucson.

Should note that at our NW Phoenix location, winter lows are typically 5
deg cooler than the official airport lows but highs are about the same.
And the temps in the garden amongst all the vegetation is still
different from that at our backyard thermometer location.  So I would
tend to use the published zone designation as a guide, not as an
absolute

Why not experiment and try it both ways?

Olin

----- Original Message ----- From: Jonathan Kandell
To: arid_gardener@Ag.Arizona.Edu
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 5:25 AM
Subject: plant tomatoes early or on time?

>Like many of you, I face a really short tomato season March - June,
with
>not many tomatoes by the time it gets hot, so this year I'm starting
>seed a month early.  Question: Is it better to plant standard-sized
>tomato seedlings (7 weeks) a month early in e.g. wall o waters or
>plastic-wrapped cages; or is it better to keep them inside an extra
>three or four weeks until the regular planting time?  My fear is that
>putting them in early, even under plastic, they'll just sit there,
>whereas inside they'd continue growing.  Then again, I've heard many
>warnings about growing seedlings beyond 6-8 weeks.