Frost-free?
My weather guru
doesn't want to commit to no more frosts this early in May. But the
10-day forecast shows lows only descending in the mid-50s to low-60s
between now and our frost-free date, so I decided to go ahead and set
out our tomatoes. Worst-cast scenario, we can always cover the plants with buckets
during the inevitable Blackberry Winter. Best-case scenario, there
won't be any more freezes and our little plants can finally start
perking up with their feet in the earth. I know it's just my
imagination, but the plants look happier already.
Meanwhile, I went ahead and set out eight sweet potato slips
as well. I've got lots more slips coming off my tubers inside or
rooting in a cup of water, and those will go in the ground throughout
the month of May. But since these guys were rooted and ready (and since
the highs are suddenly very summery), I decided to set them out early.
On the other hand, I really will wait to transplant the peppers and basil until after our frost-free date. Probably. Maybe....
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Charity --- You could just go with it and mound up a bit of dirt around the base of the sideways plants. After all, tomatoes will root along any part of stem that gets buried, so you'd end up with more roots and a long-term stronger plant that way. That's why a lot of people bury their tomato plants quite deep, up to the first leaves or deeper.
Julie --- I hope AccuWeather is right. Because the forecast here changed overnight, predicting a low of 44 sometime next week. (Of course, as I check again...now they're back to the low 50s. So who knows what will actually happen.)