How to Direct Seed Tomatoes

Most people start their tomatoes indoors and then transplant them outdoors once there's no risk of frost - but you can also start them outdoors, and there's good reasons to try!

We love our gardens, and everything in them, but few gardeners are more prideful or boastful about any other plant. Whether it is their vibrant red colour, their wonderful flavour, or the pure hubris associated with fooling a tropical plant to grow in a northern climate - tomatoes inspire vanity in food gardeners like no other plant, and I am no exception to that rule.

I love tomatoes, and I wait in eager anticipation each gardening season for the joy of eating the first tomato that I am able to pluck from my own vines. For me, it's all about the flavor. There is usually no comparison for the difference in flavor between store-bought tomatoes and home-grown. I find it so stark that I rarely buy tomatoes out of season because I find that, for the most part, while they have the right color and shape, the flavor just isn't there, and even when they are 'good' — they are in a different category of 'good' that is of a lesser order that that which applies to home-grown tomatoes.

Is there anything more pleasing to a gardener than healthy tomato plants? [source]

The problem: A short growing season

So, we love tomatoes and we all want big healthy plants that produce as many as possible — but there's a problem: they are tropical/subtropical plants, and many of us are trying to grow them in a temperate zone. Tomatoes need warm soil, warm air and lots of sun to reach maturity and bear fruit, and this can be challenging in part of the world where everything freezes for a number of months every year. This can be further complicated in places where the spring and summer weather tends to be cloudy and overcast, because the the lack of good sunlight starves the plant of energy, while the soil simultaneously fails to reach and maintain optimal temperatures.