I've been trying two different approaches to planting out tomatoes. I wanted to see the effect of planting out early and not.

I planted two tomato seeds towards the start of April and kept them indoors until they'd begun to look like plants which was near the end of April. I then planted out one of the seedlings outdoors and kept the other in the kitchen on the window sill.

May's weather was a combination of some pretty chilly weather and also some very hot days. In the last week, which was particularly hot, I planted out the second seedling, it was more of an established plant though by this time.

The difference between the two plants is significant. The tomato plant which went out first and experienced the lower temperatures (not freezing of course) is stunted, the leaves are small. The tomato plant which had the luxury of a warm kitchen stands tall with many leaves and is already showing signs of fruits.

So, when is the best time to plant out tomato plants? The answer is I have no idea. Why? Because I messed up the experiment. What I thought was a really good looking tomato plant is in fact a chilli plant. So really it should be when is the best time to plant out a chilli plant, which would appear to be end of May or the start of June. 

I've still got the tomato plants going, but they are looking a little sad. I really hope they pick up, I am looking forward to them producing some good tomatoes. It's a shame about the experiment, but there you go. Mistakes happen, I should have labelled the pots!

I'll keep you updated with their progress in due course. Hopefully soon showing signs of edible food!

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