tomatoes

good morning all

i have been going through the forum and have noticed a few people are growing tomatoes now
soooooooooooooooooooooo.........................
can you start them now or is it too early ?

should i wait ? it does say start them off in my veg book but as it does'nt say anything about where to put them mine would be in the conservatory which at night hits the same temps as outside near enough

would they be ok with that ?

many thanks to any advice

 

Morning Cattwoman. If you plant now you will need somewhere warm for germination then keep them warmish for a couple or so months. I am growing some this year for the first time in years but I shan't plant the seeds until the end of Feb or even up to the middle of March. I just think that not only aren't the temperatures high enough yet, even under glass, but the light levels are insufficient and they would probably go leggy. But that is a matter of opinion.

 

I used to follow what the books said, they would bang on about how you can sow tomato seed in January in a heated greenhouse.
Trouble is you need about 15C to grow them on after germination, and at this time of the year the light is terrible, so you need lighting as well.
Without both you end up with a tall straggly plant, that will easily be overtaken by a mid March sowing.

We agree John :D

 

We usually sow our first tomatoes on or around the 20 December. However we do maintain a minimum temp of around 15c and use some supplementary lighting if January is dull, just a flourescent bulb kept quite close to the seedlings is enough to prevent them stretching.

 

thanks for all your replys think im going to hang on till the end of feb just to be on the safe side