Okay, so I successfully got my baby 'maters to the third pair of leaves-- all 64 plants! WHEW!! I know, I wayyyy over-planted, but I've never had success growing tomatoes from seeds before. That is, I never got them past the first pair of leaves before they fizzled over and died. I've had great success for years with established transplants that I purchased from a nursery, but I was bound and determined to successfully grow tomatoes FROM SEED-- just ONCE in my life.

Now I have 3 varieties (Super Beefsteak, Roma and Sweet 100's) and they're all stout looking plants. I did everything "wrong" this year-- including putting them outside in a coldframe "too early" in order to get them away from the cat who was determined to eat the emerging seedlings. And I've been abundantly blessed. BTW-- I started them in one of those Burpee seed-starter system thing-a-ma-jiggers with the tray and the watering pad. Those seeds emerged in less than 5 days!

About that "coldframe"-- it's actually a plastic box with wheels and a translucent lid, made for storing stuff under a bed. It works great and allows me to wheel the babies to safety in the event of bad weather. I was glad to have that setup about 2 weeks ago when we had severe storms. I rolled the whole thing up to the covered porch and they escaped the hail and high winds. I have a bunch of pepper plants going in there as well (about 72 seedlings in 6 different varieties-- from mild Bells to fiery red Habaneros).

Now, I'm in the Dallas-Ft. Worth urban area where we have Zone 8 conditions, a little warmer than the surrounding area which is officially Zone 7. I'm ready to "pot up" the babies, but it's still too cool to pop them into their permanent home. The plants are too large and too numerous to keep indoors under lights, and they've been acclimated to outdoor conditions (though I wheel them indoors overnight if the temps are expected to get very cold). Surprisingly, these babies survived temps in the low 30's and horrible lighting, and they've rebounded beautifully.

So since we are about 6 weeks away from our last anticipated frost date and these plants seem to be thriving, what would be the best way for me to nurse them along until I can permanently plant them or give some of them away to their new homes? They're almost ready to outgrow the coldframe! I do have a "green-tent", a plastic sheet tent that I cobbled up to extend the growing season last year when I had a slew of green tomatoes late in the season that I wanted to finish off-- and it worked well for the big plants. Currently it houses lettuce, radishes and onions. I live in a 1 bedroom duplex and have no extra bedrooms for storing plants. Space is limited!

Ideas?