Don't Plant Tomatoes Too Early This Year — Here's The Ideal Time

There's something extremely satisfying about growing tomatoes. Sure, you can plant a garden filled with beautiful flowers, leafy herbs, and blooming vegetables, but watching a bright green vine snake up a stake and blossom with vibrant, ruby red globes — that's something that really evokes a sense of pride. There are a wide variety of variables that need to come together in order to achieve this, but there is one thing you can take into account to help your tomatoes along their way: don't plant them too early, tomatoes do not like cold weather.

The exact time you should plant tomatoes depends on where you live. For many, it's usually around spring time, but it's important to remember that bursts of cold weather can still occur at this time of year. Tomatoes love warm weather, and unlike other hardier plants and herbs you can grow throughout winter, they're extremely sensitive to frost, even a light one.

Any temperature below 50 degrees Fahrenheit can impair development, so you need to make sure you are planting tomatoes when the risk of low temperatures has definitely passed. It's just one of the hacks for growing the juiciest tomatoes to keep in mind, but it's an important one.

You can start sowing tomato seeds indoors, but make sure that your soil is consistently hitting a temperature of at least 60 degrees Fahrenheit and above during the day (50 degrees at night) for a long period of time before moving them outside. A safe bet is to start the seeds around eight weeks before the average last frost in your area and transplant them outdoors two weeks after that last frost date.

You can find data showing the averages in your area online but when you're checking it out, look at what the actual weather forecast is bringing too. Just as frost can kill tomato plants, so too can storms. Another thing to keep in mind is the growing season in your region. For people in some climates, this might occur from October all the way to March, for others it is mid January until February 1.

People who live in climates that are extremely dry or have harsh winters, like the south versus Midwest, need to be more exact, while those with 120 to 170 frost free days per year have a little more leeway. If you want to be extra cautious, buy seedlings from a garden center to speed things along or grow varieties that take less time to mature. And don't forget about the sunlight rule tomato plants depend on for the best harvest. You should think about planting basil alongside tomatoes too, but that's a calculation for another day.