Sowing outdoor tomatoes

Need to know the best time to plant?

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Primrose
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Has anybody started sowing their outdoor tomato seeds yet?
Every year I still seem to have sowed them too early and end up having to protect them.
When is the earliest date to be safe?
Sowing on a wide indoor widow sill so warmer than a greenhouse.
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retropants
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yes, I have them in 3" pots in the greenhouse for now (on a heated propogator with no lid). I am trying to collect enough 5L water bottles to use as cloches for when they do go out.
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Primrose
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Yes those square bottles with the bases chopped off make really good protective cloches. I just slip one over each stake when its cold and on the warm days they can just be slid up the stake just far enough & down again to rest between the stake and the plant. However it's a bother storing the 30 I've accumulated over time. I've tied a string loop round each neck, and hang them from a bamboo cane clipped horizontally onto the wall of my potting shed area which at least keeps them out of the way..
sally wright
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Around 8 weeks before you plan to put them out is my usual rule of thumb. I prick out into a 3 inch pot and then into a 5 inch pot (with cane if needed) before planting out. Planted deeply when they are put into the ground they won't flop around too much.
Regards Sally Wright.
lauraM
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Thank you guys for all the tips, really useful for beginner like me ;)
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Janet K. Sullivan
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Yes, I have them.
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I only grow tumbling ones outdoors last year they did well but had more tomatoes on the floor than I collected I tried growing them upside down last year but not a great success, this year it’s all tumbling toms grown in hanging baskets one in each apart from the 20 inch diameter ones which have 2 in apart from one they have netting below to catch any escapes ,the tomatoes in my poly tunnel this year are all blight resistant as 2 out of the last 3 years they have succumbed to blight even cutting the blighted stems and leaves out and spraying with Jayes fluid helped I still lost a lot , but I’ve never had blight in the outdoor ones
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