Be patient. Even if you put a plant -- any plant -- into the ground early and manage to keep it alive, it will not grow one bit. The soil is cold, and the roots won't spread. Meanwhile, the same plants, if held in their containers, will continue to grow bigger and stronger. At minimum, day and night temperatures should be at least 50 degrees. The warmer the better.

I planted some of mine a few days ago and have the rest on the picnic table getting almost a little too large. I kind of wish that I had set them all out earlier before the 3 inches of rain the last few days. If you got the rain I did, it may take a while longer to dry out unless you have super amended raised beds.

Don't worry about your tomato plants getting to big. I have planted them about 18" tall from the trays. You can take a hoe and pull a 6" deep v-ditch in your row and then snipe the branches off up to about 6 or 8" from the top of the tomato and then lay them in the ditch and cover them up to about 6 to 8" from the top of the plant. This will also give the tomato plant a stronger root system because all of the stem that you have covered up will now grow roots thus giving it a better system to take up water and nuitriants.

It is better in my opinion to let them grow bigger inside your warm area than to set them in the cold ground that will only delay they growth.

Thanks. Yup we got the rain.

I'd rather they were in the ground. Those already planted are doing ok.

Mine look like crap. Big ridge to set up over east half of the country according to Euro at 10 days. Widespread 80's. Time to celebrate!

I do have (ahem) super amended raised beds right here in zone 6. The tomatoes are in there as of today and look very happy due to the increased soil temperature compared with row gardening in the ground. Just taking advantage of every cheap opportunity to encourage all of you to build raised beds for an overall superior gardening experience.

When it comes to soil temps I honestly do not see the advantage of raised beds. As a disclaimer all of my veggy growing area is raised beds, but I do this for drainage, not temps.

It is certainly true that raised beds warm faster than the ground, but it is also true that they cool faster. Simply put raised beds do not have as much insulation value as the earth does.

Sure, when a nice, sunny day comes along the raised bed will warm faster than the earth will, but when the sun sets and frigid temps return the raised bed will drop in temp much faster than the earth will.

It is a double edged sword.

In some cases raised beds will allow earlier planting, but the opposite isn't true. Once the cool weather of fall arrives and starts shutting down plant production, it will be the less insulated raised beds that suffer first.

Not knocking raised beds as I make use of them myself, but they are not the panacea they are often made out to be, particularly when it comes to managing soil temps.

Well, I do not find this to be true in my own garden, but have not investigated the "science" of how quickly the beds cool off. The depth and amount of added (still decaying) organic matter and the mulch factor might affect the cooling rate, I would expect, but I am not sure how you could "calculate" it - it would have to vary from bed to bed all things considered. I plunged my arm in there to assess the warmth, and that is the truth. It is warmer for me (warmer than the ground) all through the Fall, but that is just what I observe here, and I amend like there's no tomorrow. Also remember that as the beds cool, the heat that leaves them radiates upward and possibly the plants benefit from that too. Then you have to evaluate depth of the bed, wall materials, and all of that I suppose. Just more food for thought.

i put mine in the ground on Monday i live in southern indiana and they have taken off

Pushed the zone this year. Put in 11 plants on the 6th and 7th, then 9 more on the 13th. Matina & Early Girl were the first to go in and while the Matinas grabbed hold, the Early Girl looks pathetic. Might tear it out in a day or two replace it with something else.

Second year doing double dug raised bed and they have for me at least, pretty much eliminated weeding. Last year some purslane showed up and I never bothered to weed it. Didn't hurt tomato production and nothing else could grow under that mat. Easy to flood the beds to water too.

This year's beds:

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Last year in August:

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