Well, things kind of got away from me this summer and I’m looking at some 12" tall tomato plants sitting in their pots indoors by the window. Is it too late to plant them outside? I’m in the Pacific Northwest.
Depends on what kind they are. If they are short-season types, you might just get in under the wire.
Plant them if healthy. You won’t get the optimum harvest, but your looking at nothing, if you don’t plant them. A sick spindly yellow plant should go in the trash.
What is your alternative? What will happen if you keep them inside in their pots? Probably nothing you could eat.
Yeah, what’s it going to hurt? You might want to put them outside for only a few hours a day for a few days, so the leaves get used to stronger sunlight, before putting them out full time, but that’s probably being more cautious than you really need.
Okay, tomorrow it is.
Plant them and google some recipes for green tomatoes.
Place them fairly far apart (at least a foot or so). And dig a large, deep hole, then fill it in halfway before planting them – you want the dirt underneath them loosened, so that their roots can easily penetrate it and catch up.
But it should work. This is just like starting seedling tomatoes inside – you’ve just left them inside a bit longer than the normal time.
Also, plant them a bit deeper than the current ‘soil-line’. Tomato plants send roots out from the buried stems and a weak plant can get ‘stronger’ by giving it more roots, so to speak. Just plant the things a few inches deeper than what would be ‘normal’ with other species and all should be well. Breaking up the soil deep and wide does help, too (as posted above) with amending if warranted.
I am still finding volunteer tomato plants in my ‘scrap pile’ and replanting them in full-sun. I know I will get production from them as I have ever other year I have done this. When days start shortening, production drops markedly, but tomatoes are still produced and are as tasty as the others earlier in the year 