I just went out to the barn and found a ton of larger pots. I'll research how to root cuttings.. pretty new to all this. Wish I would have known about all these pots before. I'm staying at a relatives and they gave me free reign to all their garden supplies.

Edit: Will cuttings be able to harden off and be planted in time this year? Looks like your in AR as-well. I am in Lead Hill.

Also I just checked and the suckers on these are almost non-existent most are only a quarter of an inch or smaller. Can you root from cutting of regular branches? I don't feel these tiny suckers would be ready in time for outside and fruiting.

Other than repoting and rooting, you should stop fertilizing and keep them at lower temperature to slow down growing.

BTW: When is your LFD ?
The weather looks pretty nice . Keep an ey on 10 days forecast and you may be able to start hardening of and plant out sooner.

Seysonn

@seyson I have not fertilized and the house temps is 70. The lfd for my location is April 24 I believe but I read the chance of frost drops quite a bit after the 16th.

Good news. Check the 10 days forecast. I would start hardening them off right away. By then your LFD will be gone anyway.
I am looking at the temperatures map. Right now at 5 pm(your time) the temperature across Arkansas is 68F. I dont know how low it will get at night but I estimate to be over 45F. In another week probaably it should be about the same if not warmer.
Anyway, Dave is very close to you and he can give you better advice.

Seysonn

Since you are so close to plant out, here is what I would do. If you are planting them in the ground, dig a trench and plant them horizontally. Bend the tops up gently and cover with soil with just 4 inches or so above ground. If planting in containers, bury them deep with just the tops sticking up. In both cases you would need to provide protection from sun and wind for several days. Check your forecast for the next 10 days and make sure nothing in the 30's. Good luck!

Agree with hoosier,
Number one: take time and harden them off.
Trenching is the way for lanky seedlings.
Thou tomato plants can take temps down to 35F, after hardening off (my own experience) but better to avoid under 40F.

BTW: I have planted few right now and our night lows dip to 38F. But that is only couple of nights. The forecast says it will be in low to mid 40s in 2 days.

Ditto for what everyone else said. You need to repot into a 6 inch pot OR plant outside. Either way remove the lower leaves and bury the stem. I would plant outside and just cover if needed for the next few days. If you repot, take outside during the day and bring in at night.

I have a huge plastic wrap I can use to make a tent to protect agaisnt wind and possibly low temps if I do it right. I will try to maybe put a few outside like that and try to harden the rest off. if they fail outside how soon will I know? the temps wont get below 45 withen the next 10 days.

The trouble with trying to harden them off is that they are very tall and the stems are not strong. If you do try to harden some of them off then I would repot them first. You can harden them off in the ground by providing a wind block as you said and shading them from the mid day sun. What I like to do in those situations is plant before several days of clouds and rain if you can.

I live in north central AR and planted my heirloom tomatoes last week. They'd been hardening off for a couple of weeks prior to this. Now I'm seeing blooms on some - Cherokee Purple and Oaxaca Jewel, et al. Should I pinch these off?

TIA

We trenched some of ours last year. It was either raining or too cold to plant them. We marked where the plants were buried so we didn't step on them. They grew as well or better than the regular planted ones. I wouldn't bother repotting at this late date if you plan to plant them out on the 24th. Cuttings root easily in soil. I plant one cutting per 4" pot. I take a 4" cutting and remove the bottom leaves and stick it in the soil. Water it and don't water it too often after that. It won't absorb much. You will treat it just like the others as far as hardening off.

I think that trenching has benefits, as there is more buried stem area from which roots can grow. If the plant is about 12 - 14", I'll just plant it deeper so that about 8" sticks out.
You can also support the lanky seedlings by small (1/2") bamboo stakes until they get used to winds.

Seysonn

I ended up trimming them down to half their size and rooting the cuttngs. the larger branches did really well the smar ones did not root but I was able to get 10 or so new plants from this. I hardned the trimmed tomatoes off outside and they are doing well (most of them). I will be planting them in the garden tomorrow :)