Please believe me when I say that I understand you want to plant your tomatoes already. I do too, but it is 44° outside as I type this.

Every morning, after it warms up, I move all of these home grown tomato seedlings outside, and every evening I bring them back inside. These are going in my and client’s gardens. I’ve been tending them for weeks, and after all that care, I’m not about to put them outside before the temps are consistently above 55°.

Why wait until temps are 55°?

From UMass: “Tomatoes are a warm season crop. Blossom drop can occur in early spring when daytime temperatures are warm, but night temperatures fall below 55 degrees F”

From UNH: “Bring plants indoors at night and on days when temperatures fall below 60°F. Below this temperature, tomatoes experience chilling injury, which can delay their growth and may cause a condition called “catfacing” on early fruit…. Wait until danger of frost has passed and soil temperatures have warmed to about 60°F”

From Rutgers: “Planting too early stresses [tomato] plants due to cool air and soil temperatures.”

Nope. I like my tomatoes. I’m waiting, because science.

However, to put this in perspective: If you plant when there are still a few cool nights, your crop isn’t likely to fail. You’ll likely produce tomatoes a bit slower than your neighbors, maybe your plants will be a bit stunted, the plants may be diseased and the first fruits may look funky.

A complete failure? Not likely, but why risk it or expect these other issues if you don’t need to?

We all have timing issues and many of us go away for Memorial Day Weekend, and we want tomatoes in the ground before we leave.

Or, looking at the next 7 days, (Memorial Day is Monday), I get it. But you might be better off waiting until you come home, and still be prepared to throw some cover over the plants at night, if you’re into that kind of thing.