How early for setting out Tomatoes in cold 'house in the 'Midlands'?
:o
Late March/early April?... I'd look at doing that in Oxford... if I had that much space in my GH... maybe a couple of weeks later in a polytunnel....
we put some of ours out late feb under a glass bottle cloche in the poly, mainly tigerella and golden sunrise :)
Good golly whiskers!!
I usually leave it until mid - May.
Depends on the variety. I usually sow Ildi and Bloody Butcher in mid-Jan to plant out as early as possible at the allotment GH (unheated), say mid/late April.
But the main-crop (Shirley) doesn't go in till May. It's usually an arm-wrestling thing with my Assistant Gardener, who thinks that the main function of a greenhouse is to over-winter cuttings, so until the troughs & baskets start getting planted, there's no hope of my getting in there to plant tomatoes!
But if CC's getting them in late March in Oxford, I might try a bit earlier next year.
As a bonus, though, the Ildi are still going strong and show no signs of slowing down production!
Mid-May... if I'm lucky... growing things for the plant sales takes up too much space before then.. ::)
Tim We use a mini GH inside the glass one so ours go out early march if its not too cold. We had a self seeder sprout up in the sand around the edge of the GH in March this year. If we get a cold snap then we put some fleece around them. As yet we have not had to
Will try some a bit earlier, but we are 650' up.