Tomato seedlings - what would you do?

I'm about to have yet another disappointing tomato-growing season :(

Last year I lost all my plants to blight by August. I was able to harvest quite a lot but probably still lost about 70% of my crop.

This year, I seem to be having a problem at a much earlier stage!

So I moved house in March and wasn't able to start off my tomatoes until 21st March which was a little later than I hoped but not so bad. I used a different compost which I'm not a huge fan of...

I started them off in my conservatory which is unheated but they were on heat mats. I believe they have become stunted after getting too cold. We didn't realise when we moved in just how cold the conservatory got at night (around 6 degrees for a few nights! Basically only a degree or two above outdoor temps) so I am concerned that got cold and became stunted.

I was kidding myself that since it's warmed up now they would catch up. I always plant out my tomatoes on the 27th May (it's my Nanny's birthday and in our family that's just the day we plant out haha, it works!) and I'm looking at these sad sad seedlings and thinking no way are they going to get there in time. They're also incredibly leggy. My first time using LED lights and I don't think they're as good as my all-white ones which are much stronger (and I've only just managed to locate in a packed box!)

Anyway... these are just pathetic right?!

The "best" of the bunch is this leggy one:



About half of them look like this though, completely terrible:



They're not going to catch up are they? I'm considering potting on the "best" ones putting the stem in nice and deep. I will start putting them outside in the day in the sunshine a bit more. And I'm considering throwing out the terrible ones and just buying a handful of replacements this year from local sellers and trying my luck again next year.

So what would you do? Keep trying? Or ditch? Or keep the best and ditch the rest.

For reference this is where they were this time last year!

 

They are not looking good as you say.
I'd be inclined to just keep the ones that seem to be doing half decent.

It really depends on how many plants you really need, they are not that expensive to buy these days, it just means you have to go with the varieties that are available.

 

I have halos and space for 16 plants. I preserve a lot so I tend to keep a handful of salad varieties and cherry, but then mostly grow sauce varieties so that I can make my own sauces throughout the year. Obviously last year being a total bust meant no stocks of tomato sauce and I very much miss it!

I normally keep about 2 of each variety and grow the bush cherry ones (the ones that are actually doing the best) in a wall planter.

I think I might get some seedlings from Facebook and call it quits on the terrible ones this year :(

 

Do you grow outside or in a greenhouse, only I had a bad blight year last year so I'm growing mostly blight resistant ones this year.

 

All outside. This year I plan to have some varieties in a small growhouse but still mostly outside.

As far as I'm aware blight was a serious problem last year. I used to housesit for a lot of people with gardens and I don't know anyone who escaped the blight.

 

I caved and bought new tomatoes, enough to see me through. I potted on just a tiny handful of plants and binned the rest. The ones I've potted on are already looking pretty bad I couldn't deal with wasting more compost and pots on the awful tiny ones! Live and learn. Next year I'm hoping to get a proper greenhouse

 

No you didn't cave in you adapted