Growing tomato's in Seattle

[dkh2]

From the Seattle Times (This is the reason for my interests in Grow Lights)

1. Mid-January: Start tomatoes indoors, from seeds.

2. April 1: Prepare gardening bed by laying out "T-tape" irrigation and covering soil with red plastic to increase the soil temperature.

3. Mid-April: Transplant starts, one plant for every 2-by-2 foot area. Immediately cover plants with cloches (you can make your own -- Annette recommends metal hoop frames and clear plastic, but milk jugs work too). Place bricks or rocks and water-filled milk jugs between the vines to absorb heat during the day and radiate it by night.

4. Mid-May: When night lows exceed 50 degrees Fahrenheit, remove cloches. Prune indeterminate plants to central stem and stake them. Remove suckers on determinate plants and cage them. Immediately surround bed on north and east sides with 24-inch high walls made from reflective galvanized metal roofing. When plants fruit and begin to ripen, erect 24-inch high corrugated metal panels on west and south sides to keep away rats. Light reflected off metal walls will bounce around as in a "solar tube" skylight and metal will heat up the garden bed like a solar oven.

5. Late May to early June: Harvest first perfect tomato.

6. Early to mid-July: Harvest buckets of large, ripe tomatoes.

7. July 1: Give indeterminate plants a haircut. Cut off flowering branches just beyond the last fruits, to encourage the plant to focus its energy on ripening existing fruit and not making new fruit that will not ripen before fall.

8. Aug. 1: Stop watering. Compose haiku: "Tomatoes in Seattle...Whose will ripen first? Annette's will, that's whose."

 

[dkh2]

cloches = a Seattle version of a cold frame

 

[dkh2]

My Mini Green House I use every year this one is 4 years old now I started Giant Pumpkins in it Tomato's
and also Tobacco plants that's a water container in it Those are ok but more a pain than any thing but they work
The green house is mainly to keep the wind off the plants
It get's down right windy here and it is a destroyer of young plants

 

[Daniel]

Not sure if you have done this before but with three moths indoor growing those should be some really big plants by the time you set them out in mid April. I started mine indoors 6 weeks early last year for a mid May transplant. They woudl have been a nice size for handling but spring came real late for us. almost 4 weeks late so the plants ended up well over a foot tall. We finally had to plant them out even though nights where still getting to cold and it set them back for a little while. But they did come through with about 600 lbs of tomatoes for 30 some plants. And those where Romas.
Best of luck with them this year. looks like spring is already here in our area and I have people saying this weather is supposed to last until April. We are going out to help a lady expand her garden next weekend and she is starting to plant winter crops now.

 

[dkh2]

I start my tobacco seeds around the first of April
Mid May is when I set tobacco outside
The weather is a lot more stable by then.

The tomato's have been a yearly event for the last 35 years
I have two T5 high output 6500k lights hooked up now at 4000 lumens or 83.3 per watt
I got a T8 light I'm going to add when ever I get the energy up to make a new fixture
So then it will have 5000 lumens.
I used to start my Giant Pumpkins inside too but with a lot shorter time span
Those bad boys grow like crazy real quick, and there vines start early in the life cycle
and are a real pain to set outside if there two big.
One plant will fill up my entire front yard and grow into my neighbor Vern's yard.



Notice the Green Brior Burley in the middle of the Pumpkin Patch