I definitely agree, but this all ignores the fact that the forsythia blooms typically well before LFD, so even as a piece of folklore it doesn't make much sense, unless of course you are providing significant protection for your plants. :)

LFD isn't a myth -- it is statistics. It is basic science. So is a soil thermometer. Nothing mystical about it. That's not to say you are beholden to the "rules", which can sometimes be bended, but frost kills tomatoes is a pretty cut and dry one.

Nothing beats statistics like success as I have had for the last 3 years with the Forsythia fact so "plbbbbtttttt" on statistics which can be twisted to prove anything.

BTW1: Your statistics can predict actually the LFD?
BTW2: A soil thermometer is going to indicate the LFD?
Both certainly sound like myths to me.

All gardening does have risks, true. But many of those risks can easily be mitigated, even prevented. That's accomplished with far more scientific approaches like soil thermometers and carefully tracked data than by things like when a certain bush blooms.

And the ability to mitigate, even avoid those risks completely comes with practical experience, learning, and common sense. So how does advocating such unsupported planting guides benefit anyone?

So much of the discussions we get here from new gardeners come prefaced with comments like "I read somewhere..." or "Someone told me...." and the initial gut reaction (that can't be posted because they don't know any better) is something like "HUH!!?" or "what a crock!". So when someone encourages other to plant their tomatoes when the forsythia blooms or similar wives tales (if you don't like "myths") it is only fair to expect them to also present the caveats, the qualifications, the possible problems, etc. at the same time.

We all know there is a mass of inaccurate, confusing, and downright mis-leading gardening info out there already. Why contribute to that mass?

Dave

Honestly at this point I feel like you are just trolling.... good luck with your plantings.

BTW, I see several likely frosts in the forecast for Middletown, CT... but I guess the weather forecast can be twisted to prove anything too, right?

https://weather.com/weather/5day/l/USCT0120:1:US

To be fair, there are microclimates that can make conditions in your bed somewhat different than that, say, in the county as a whole. So if you've kept good records, and you find the average date of first frost is significantly different for you than the region around you, then by all means use your own data. YOUR statistics can predict the LFD for your garden better than any one elses statistics. You may also have an unusual variety of forsythia that blooms when it is especially warm. But the fact remains that weather in the last few months won't predict the weather in the next few months, and the weather in the last few months is all that the forsythia knows about.

Trolling? Cheap shot (:
Be the first to accuse and you win the Kewpie doll.

Middletown weather is controlled, to some extent, by the thermal capacitance of the river so yes, they may have a few frost threats especially by the over reactive weather people.

With weather reports claiming "up to three inches or more" and this recent prediction of 12" of snow, do you really find this to be any foundation for your gardening. I had scarcely 1/2 inch of slush and it was gone by noon. Yes, I did cover them anticipating a total loss but none were scathed. I should have left one uncovered as a control.

All this talk about LFD is so very strange. Does anyone actually believe in any study that will predict that? I can certainly work with the average LFD and my degree day trends help to some extent with that. So far months November to March have all been considerably higher for temperatures.

Call it a mini global warming phenomenon and time will tell.
Specifically July 4th, won't it?

BTW, my forsythia is not clairvoyant but it is the first in the neighborhood to bloom.

Forsythia ovata 'Ottawa'

The temperature forecast isn't done by hyperreactive weather people, it is computer generated without bias -- and I can say that they typically forecast significantly more mild temperatures than occur in my garden, and I get frost with temperature forecasts of 40 sometimes. I can also say in my garden, just this very same year, the forsythia was blooming and we had 26F for 2 nights, so this bit of folklore most definitely does not apply universally. Even with an AG cover tomatoes would have been toast.

"The temperature forecast isn't done by hyperreactive weather people,"

Maybe you don't have the weather dingbats in your area.....
Everything is cutsie, Rain is a hateful condition. They rarely talk about first or last freezing temperatures and push sunny days. They don't even mention the 7 day accumulated rain fall anymore. Aside from disasters or far extremes of weather, everything is all happy happy. Would you find this a reliable source to use?

They forget that the weather forecast originated for the farmers and I doubt they even know why it is called meteorology.

" and I get frost with temperature forecasts of 40 sometimes."

So you garden in a hazardous microclime. I guess this means that what doesn't work for you cannot ever work for anyone else. I beg to differ.

We have not had late frosts in the NEast for 4-5 years. A bad one maybe 5 yrs ago that hit the fruit trees bad. Ant early toms were toast...even covered.

Pushing for early toms is rather common but the varieties stink. Still a bit better than grocery varieties.

I'm patient and plant the first weekend in June. Lately the last weekend in May. You may have a few weeks on me.

Last year i put in some starts 6 weeks early and they survived fine. The rest in a barn window got leggy and went in late. (i went out of town) Not any intended experiment. They all grew the same in the end. Leggy barn toms looked horrid. Recovered once in warm soil.

Every neighborhood has a boasting early tom guy and i welcome it. And an only paste sauce guy. (He can have em'.)

Its fun push it a bit. Go for it. It has been done for years, Nothing new.

When the ServiceBerry bloomed way early the ground was still rock solid. That is when the early settlers buried those that died during the winter months. It was an indication of a soil thaw.

I also aim for very early pickings. July 4th? you got me beat.
"It is nice to know that there are people out there that are sicker than I am..."
(Tim Curry)

Leggy tom plants can be planted horizontally rather than deep. I have had good success with this. The soil is warmer too. I use Rutgers and am very happy.

I give them all a good start with a handful each of Epsom Salt (Magnesium sulfate), crushed egg shell, composted cow manure, and compost. The first two will prevent blossom end rot. Lots of mulch to prevent weeds and keep moisture.

I recall that they used to post the accumulated water fall.I guess that it is not as important as the kid growing sunflowers....

Here in Australia - or in my cold temperate patch of Australia - the saying is to plant after the Melbourne Cup. (The first Tuesday in November.)

IMO, it is much too late. And it means that young, newly planted tomatoes have to cope with hot weather before their root systems are big enough.

We were always told that all tomato plants will be affected by viruses when they reach a certain age. No matter what you do. So for the keen tomato grower, it seems to be that it would be a good idea to have more than one 'set' of tomato plants. Plant the first group nice and early, sow some more seed and plant the second set a little later. I've not done that, but it sounds logical to me.

(To avoid Blossom End Rot, water evenly, so that calcium is always available to the plants. IOW, do not let the soil dry out between waterings.)

It was a bit difficult to read your message, your accent is a bit thick.

Not knowing how warm it gets there but here in CT-USA zone 6, I have an offset louvered cover that blocks direct-down sunshine while allows angled sunlight. It seems to keep the patch cooler.

I did not take a pic of it last year and have not set it up this year.

Frost with 40F temperatures is unlikely, but possible if the air is very dry and the dew point very low. Then wind can produce frost. But that's science, and the OP seems uncomfortable with that.

While my garden does have a cooler microclimate, frosts in forecasted temperatures above freezing are very common.

Polar vortex next week, temperatures down to the low 20s. I hope you can enlist the forsythia in some heroics to save those tomatoes. :)

Nice that you care so much for my tomato plants....

I did lose one when the cover flap wasn't secured. The others are hardening quite nicely. It is probably my imagination but I think I saw a flower bud forming.

It will get cold here in a night or two but i am ordering that vortex to stay outta my area.... No matter, I have 15 others waiting as stand bys. They have been spending a lot of time outside lately.

Two snowstorms and a power outage since last week...and hard frost.

Early starts are potted up. Second tray about to be. Third tray was sown yesterday. Lots of insurance. Nothing will go in the ground for some time.

OK, I finally got hit. First time in four years since I started experimenting on planting in tune with the Forsythia,
In review of my notes, My degree day chart suggests that I should have
been planting when the Forsythia is in full bloom, not starting. Oh
well, I can now test that theory because I still have 15 plants left. I
just won't be giving away as many this year. At least the garden is
ready.
This time, it looks as if it will finally get cold
enough tonight to ruin the Magnolia bloom though. I will check in the
morning. I used to cover it but it has become just too large for that.
It is probably a good thing that it bloomed only about 1/3 of the buds
so it may still look good in a few weeks.

I'm sorry you got hit. However, when you base your planting plans on something as unscientific as forsythia blooms, it was bound to happen. At least other readers have this negative info so they can better realize what risks they take should they think of trying this schedule.

I am curious: What "scientific" method do you have to guarantee being able to pick the earliest possible tomatoes?

BTW: Developing a theory is not negative info.

"Nothing beats statistics like success as I have had for the last 3 years with the Forsythia fact so "plbbbbtttttt" on statistics which can be twisted to prove anything."

Nuff said.

One has already been presented - weather statistics. While not perfect, you can see how grossly off the forsythia blooming has been, ours have been in full bloom 2 weeks and it was 19F last night.

There is no such thing as a guarantee with the weather, by any method. But, if you want to take such a risk, take good measures like using wall of waters. Ask about them on the tomato forum they do crazy stuff with those things.

Thanks for sharing the outcome. Hopefully your next planting will turn out better.

So, a challenge to a new theory is thrown out because of one failure? True, nothing is guaranteed but a do few years (50?) of statistics outweigh the patterns nature which have been in development for millions of years.

If I wanted to be so totally safe in my efforts, I certainly would not be into gardening as it would be no fun at all.

This thread is dead and buried. If you want to continue beating a dead horse I am not going to participate. Best of luck with your future plantings.

"One has already been presented - weather statistics. While not perfect,
you can see how grossly off the forsythia blooming has been, ours have
been in full bloom 2 weeks and it was 19F last night."

On a per-year basis, plants are a clear indicator of degree days which is far more reliable method than some estimated scientific theory. So are the peepers, the locust, and that at 1000 degree days it is the best time to spray for the insects that invade the plums without affecting the pollinators. The list goes on and has been tested. This is not a grossly-off theory rather it has been reliable for the many years.

What is the earliest you have been able to pick a tomato?
You have to admit that 1 in 60 IS a very good record.

Lol... listen, I have sympathy for those who are facing such confusing weather, but I gotta say... I'm further south than a few of our fellow gardeners here, and I haven't seen fit to even think about poking the thermometer in the ground yet.

We've had a few colder days since the early spring warm-up, and it looks like another cold one coming up this weekend, but experience has continually told me to be patient.

So far, all I have in the ground are snap peas, favas, lettuce, arugula, kale, raab, broccoli, and cilantro. For this weekend, I may just cover the cilantro (the brassica bed is under insect barrier, and I'm sure it should survive 29 f just fine. Nothing else has been covered during these 30 f nights.) I may not even cover the cilantro, we'll see how the forecast evolves. Maybe the lettuce would appreciate something to keep the frost off, we'll see...

Carol Baker, are you emerogork2? Because it sure seems likely to me, and we are being trolled in this thread.

Carol Baker only has 5 comments (you can look at them). 4 out of 5 are rude and argumentative. Just saying'.

I think we are being trolled also in this thread.

Not even close to planting warm weather stuff here in Missouri either. I don't trust the weather or the weather forecasters. The Forsythias do look very pretty though!

I did jump the gun on my earliest Broccoli starts that were planted out 3/25 and they paid the price on 3/28 when my valley microclimate got down to 27d and a lot of the existing leaves were toasted. A few miles away it was 34d at 100+ feet higher altitude. 3/4 of the broccoli is bouncing back nicely and I have some extras from my planned 4/9 planting to replace those that did not make it. All of my lettuce is planted and will be covered with double AG19 Friday to protect them from the forecasted freeze on Saturday am. The little 1/2" potato sprouts will also be covered with some leaf mulch. My Asparagus has been growing in fits and starts for the last month and I have had to put the mulch back over it several times to protect the precious new sprouts that will turn to mush if exposed to anything below 35 or so. Onions, leeks, garlic, radishes, and horseradish should all be fine. The new leaves on the Broccoli should be OK without cover but I might cover them anyway if I can manage to do so while fighting the 20-30 mph winds we are getting this week. After Saturday there are no lows below 39 predicted here and after 4/14 (my average LFD) no lows below 50.

As far as tomatoes I have plan A, B, and C growing indoors. Plan A were started 3/12 for plant out on 4/30. Plan B were started 3/25 for plant out 5/7 and plan C were started 4/2 for plant out on 5/14. Ma nature will determine which plan will work best!

"...plants are a clear indicator of degree days which is far more reliable method than some estimated scientific theory."

Estimated scientific theory? As in, reading thermometers? Whew.

I don't understand why it is so important to you to push, so forcibly, such unconventional advice? I can understand you wanting to follow your father's practice. That's fine. And if it works for you, that's fine too. It isn't as if someone is going to come arrest you for doing it. So just say "this is what I do and why" and then move on and let people form their own conclusions.

But there is no justification in so strongly advocating that others do what is clearly a controversial practice based on nothing more than your personal opinion and experience in your garden. Surely you can see how your claims have at least the potential to do so much damage to so many, especially new or inexperienced gardeners. Given that potential for damage and your determination to keep the debate alive, to defend it when it even fails for you, one has to wonder why. What's in it for you?

Dave

"...plants are a clear indicator of degree days which is far more reliable method than some estimated scientific theory."

Estimated scientific theory? As in, reading thermometers? Whew."

-----------------------------

And what do thermometers tell us? Degree days. Now all you have to do is match those with observations of plants. I have yet to read what signs tell the nay-sayers how to coordinate planting crops. If you want to counter the theory proposed, then do so. You don;t have to be nasty about it.

If you want to wait until it is totally safe then go ahead with crops that come to fruition much later in the year. As I read it, the original post had a very specific request: " I wonder if others have defied the "Do not plant until Mother's day" myth?".

One could argue that the original title did not match the content all that well but it does inspire an exploration to test the theories.

I am not, nor have I ever been, Emerogork2 or related as such.

Now back to the thread: I almost gave up with tomatoes for the hot summer injury to the fruit, cessation of growth, fruit rotting on the vine etc. I prefer not waiting for Mother's day to plant them but I will admit, I have never even considered planting in early April. I think I am going to give it a try just to see if I can prove all the late bloomers to be wrong.

"And what do thermometers tell us? Degree days."

But you said ...

"On a per-year basis, plants are a clear indicator of degree days which
is far more reliable method than some estimated scientific theory"

So that's what we're talking about. Degree days. What you say thermometers tell us. Plants are hardly a clear indicator of anything, because of all the different things that can happen to them besides temperature. Varying rainfall, nutrient fluctuations, insect infestation. If I want degree days, I'll take a thermometer and a calendar. Degrees and days, right? At least the units are correct.

You want to know what indicators we use for planting crops? The LFD and a calendar work a treat. Or is that too "scientific" for you? Yeah, those thermometers that give us LFD are pretty mysterious and spooky science instruments. And calendars? Good heavens. Fancy charts documenting the trip of the Earth around the Sun (often with pretty pictures attached). And yes, it all involves icky numbers.

"So that's what we're talking about. Degree days. What you say
thermometers tell us. Plants are hardly a clear indicator of anything,
because of all the different things that can happen to them besides
temperature. Varying rainfall, nutrient fluctuations, insect
infestation. If I want degree days, I'll take a thermometer and a
calendar. Degrees and days, right? At least the units are correct."

And plants take all of that in consideration into one nifty feature, it is called a flower. It is all packaged right there for you. All you have to do is watch them.

Give me one prediction of this year's LFD that you are touting please.

" I have yet to read what signs tell the nay-sayers how to coordinate
planting crops. If you want to counter the theory proposed, then do so."

Then you haven't fully read the thread. Measuring soil temps has been mentioned by several, artificially warming the soil prior to planting has been mentioned, planting under cover/protection has been offered as well. Not to mention LFD, thermometers, degree days, micro-climate knowledge, knowledge of how plants grow, not to mention common sense. I'll take actual knowledge and monitoring my soil temps as valid indicators of planting time any day over when some plant blooms.

Dave

"This thread is dead and buried. If you want to continue beating a dead
horse I am not going to participate. Best of luck with your future
plantings."

Yet you continue to post. Now who is trolling?
Interesting thread though. I guess if I had a surplus of tomato plants I would experiment the same way.

The dead horse is still kicking,....

I just wanted to post these.
No fertilizers, just good soil and very early planting...

" just good soil and very early planting"

And lots and lots of luck.

Dave

Yeah and what did you do to warm the soil? Honestly I feel like there is a lot more to this story.

I planted mine early on May 9th as I was going on vacation, and they are still recovering from the cold soil shock. And I have excellent soil.

" just good soil and very early planting"

And lots and lots of luck.

Dave

and 25 years of it. I guess you don't want to be standing near me when the "luck" runs out. I believe that there were only two years that we did not have red tomatoes by the 4th of July and it looks as if that this year it will be two weeks earlier.

"Yeah and what did you do to warm the soil?"

I hope this response sticks, something burped and my original response disappeared. Maybe it will not show up twice....

No, nothing to speak of for efforts to warm the soil. This year I dug out some plastic things designed for tomato plants. They are molded to hold water and black to warm the soil but I had only for of them for eight plants. I am not sure they do all that much.

Some are planted horizontally while others are vertical. This year the horizontal ones seemed to have worked better.

Raised beds, probably a good factor.

Soil additives: one hand full each of Epsom Salts, egg shells , and composted cow manure. I was just given some Tomato Tone which I have not applied yet. The soil received 2" of compost and over that 2" of dry chopped leaves. That must have helped. They will receive layers of grass clippings throughout the year.

If we did not have that last bitter cold snap (We really cannot trust those Canadians, can we?) then my original set would have been much further along than these.

I just heard of "Fourth of July" tomatoes. Maybe I will try those and turn them into Memorial Day Tomatoes. (: (:

BTW: These seeds were started on January 1st.

I can safely say that in my backyard tomatoes will absolutely not grow and flourish in 45 degree soil, which is what we had this year for a long time. It was a very cold Spring. My COOL weather crops have been slow this year due to the cold weather, I even got some stunted brassicas, and my tomatoes are still recovering from a much later planting. I could just as easily post pictures of my purple tomatoes and whine that they just won't grow planted early. Whatever you are doing, it sure isn't repeatable here, in what seems to be a slightly warmer climate.

I may have found an explanation for this...

You got me thinking on how it was that only one plant had the two tomatoes on it while no other plant had any sign of bearing fruit other than just flowers. I think I figured out why. It may take until next year to prove this but this is one plant that I gave to a neighbor.

It seems that his garden is very close to a rock outcropping. We figure that the exposed rock gathers heat and warms the soil but doubted that that in itself seem good enough. Well, with some serious poking, it was found that the rock extends under the nearby vegetable bed and found that the rock rises to about 14" below the plant.

I am now sure that this causes the soil to warm up faster than in other places. We will start monitoring soil temperatures to see how often there might be differences.

Maybe this new tomato bed is going to produce a Flag Day tomatoes.... (:
We will test this again next spring.
I wait with worm on tongue.

Tomato Plant Update.

It appears that cold soil does stunt the growth of tomato plants and this is not just causing a delay in development. They are stunted. Plants set out later grew more than those set out in colder soil. They are all in the same bed, same water, same sunlight. Interesting though, this did not seem to affect the growth of flowers and resulting tomatoes. Granted, there are fewer per plant but the few that are there compare well to plants set out later. Next year, I will update the technique for running the test.

However, I have succeeded in achieving the 4th of July picking of a red tomato. I was really hoping for at least a week or two earlier this year since we had such a mild/warm winter. That very late and hard freeze which also killed off bloom for cherry, peach, plum, forsythia, azaleas, daffodils, Star Magnolia, etc took out all of my early set of tomato plants.

That plant that showed two green tomatoes was taken out by deer? woodchucks? a neighbor? a jealous gardenweb poster? That one, had it survived, may well have been the 2016 miracle tomato.

Emerogork, thanks for the report.

My own thoughts on the question... Does the cold weather stunt the tomato growth? Definitely it does, but they still grow at slower rate. The main thing is to protect tomatoes from freezing.

Does early planting results in early tomatoes? Yes, to some degree. But there are two factors 1) the readiness of the plant to set the tomatoes i.e. the size of the plant and 2) the optimal temperature for the tomato set. In my case the tomatoes which were sown a month apart set the fruits roughly at the same time when the temperatures were right.

Does the cold permanently stunt tomatoes? No they grow normally if not better after the cold. Probably because they had already established in their permanent beds.

Here are some pictures from this spring

Small tomatoes and peppers were planted on the third week of March on the picture above in the makeshift tunnel. The soil was cold. I protected them from several freezes by turning on space heater at night. No heating in the regular days.

The plants grew. Here is the picture on the second week of April, before I planted them out.

They were planted in the permanent beds in the middle of April.

They flowered, but set fruits only when the night temperatures became warmer.

Here is the picture of the some of them made a couple days ago. Not sure about 4th of July, but they are going to ripen soon enough.

I have been eyeing this thread since it started in hopes of gaining knowledge for next year. I'll add my 2 cents: I started my tomato seedlings in flats in a greenhouse in late February, moved them to large pots (quart yogurt tubs, small coffee cans, etc) in early March, and planted out in the first week of May.

(They ended up being a little long in the tooth, I mean stem: I will start several weeks later in future. I had to deep-plant most of them.)

Anyway, I noted that the forsythia was starting to bloom when the tomatoes had been in their pots for about a month, and they did look like they were reaching a respectable transplant size at that point. But there was a lot of weather weirdness forecast, so I did not chance it and instead stuck to my family's tradition: plant on May Day.

What I noticed was: this was right about the time that the forsythia was going *out* of bloom. There was not another frost, and every tomato established well. Perhaps the *end* of the forsythia, rather than the beginning, is the tomato indicator.

And I picked my first tomato on June 12, and have been getting about a pound of fruit a day for the past week. (Mind you, I have close to 50 plants, so this isn't at all impressive! They are just outliers of the main deluge I anticipate. But it will be enough for our cookout hamburgers this Monday!)

Long in the stem, can that happen with tomatoes? I plant deep or laterally to have only about 2 - 3 inches of of green exposed. So, I figure that plants more leggy than that will grow well because many of the lower leaves are trimmed out anyway.

I will probably get some corrective feedback on this but it certainly looks as if the three surviving plants installed early do seem to be consistently smaller and do not appear to be catching up with the ones planted a month later. I will watch them to see if they end up being smaller than the others in the long run. It kinda reminds of the admonition, back in the 50s, told to teenagers that "smoking will stunt your growth".

Still, my early bird technique to get the earliest tomato in spite of the resulting condition of the plant did net my proverbial 4th of July tomato here in central Connecticut once again. I have not heard from the A.S.P.C.P on this yet....

So far, I have lost three plants. Something that has never happened before. One (yellow plum) from the raised bed and started to shrivel. Another one (plum) in a large pot just started yellowing very quickly. A third one potted plant (Arctic) that developed yellow/brown spots that appeared to be random. All three were plucked out as precaution.

It is 2am and I am rambling.....

we have had 5 out of the last 10 days dropping below 50 in MI. 43 I think was the lowest. Not a good year for toms, and it is not raining either.