Our tomato plan
"When will you have tomatoes?"
Quick answer: Our earliest tomatoes will be available in early March. (see what's coming)
Longer answer: We're sowing tomatoes to be available from early March until mid-June because we're hoping to serve people who live from 500' above sea level, where the soil temperatures will be favorable for starting tomatoes as early as March to people who like at 5000' above sea level, who might not see soil temps adequate for successful tomato growth until late June.
We're committed to not just selling you really great vegetable starts but also to helping you succeed. So it's not that we won't sell you a tomato plant if you live in Fish Camp on March 15th... it's that we'll let you know it probably won't do good in the ground yet. But if you have a way to artificially heat up the soil, like raised beds with row cover or a high tunnel / hoop house... then sure, we believe that tomato will be receiving sufficient sunlight for it to thrive.
But since our goal is your success and not our profit, that's why we're not racing out with a million warm season crops too early.
At the same time, we've been careful to select mostly early varieties as we know there's a race between when your soil is warm enough to support tomato grown and when it's so hot that your tomato plant might burn up. (We'll be showing off the value of shade cloth later as we head towards summer!)
We want to have stuff ready when your soil is ready for it.
Tomato Sowing Report
We have a lot of tomatoes at the early stages, seed sown, on the mat, on the lights, and our first trays are starting to work their way into the hoop house. When they get their first real set of leafs they'll be ready to pot up into 3.5" pots, which is our preferred size for selling as we think that 6" - 12" size is absolutely perfect for transplanting into your garden and giving it the best shot at success.
Even though we always feel a little behind the curve, we're right on track to have tomatoes available in early to mid-March.
But Mother Nature is always in charge, right? So we will see.