Planting out early tomatoes in Wall-of-waters - Our Stoney Acres (2024)

Planting out early tomatoes in Walls O’ Water makes a huge difference in our short-season garden!

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Planting out Early Tomatoes

The average last frost date around Stoney Acres is roughly May 15^th. But some years we can have frost as late as June 1^st. So an important part of season extension for us planting out early tomatoes in Walls of Water. We always like to get a few tomato plants in early every year. Conditions in the summer are really pretty good for tomatoes but we usually don’t get our first ripe tomato until around August 1^st when the tomatoes are planted on the last frost date. Planting a couple of plants early with the protection of Walls of Water gets us a few tomatoes in July (or even June) for fresh eating.

For more on this topic check out this video I filmed a couple of years ago:

On years when I am really ambitious, we try to get all of our tomatoes in early! This gives us a prolonged harvest all summer long!!

What is a Wall O’ Water

For those of you unfamiliar with Walls of Water, they are simply a heavy piece of plastic sectioned off into cells that you fill with water. They create a greenhouse-like environment that gives the plants plenty of heat in the cool spring and they also protect against very heavy freezes. The protection they offer your tomatoes is far superior to any other method I know of. In fact, I know people who use wall-o-waters in the garden as early as February and they keep the tomatoes warm and happy.

Wall of waters can be a bit of a pain to fill, but I have found an easy solution. Simply put them around a 5-gallon bucket. The bucket helps hold them up and then you can fill them easily with a hose.

You can read more about this hack on this post!

Or even better follow this link to one of my YouTube videos that will show you how to fill them up!

When you should be planting out early tomatoes

Our goal is just to have some tomatoes before July so we also choose some early ripening varieties to plant. Most years we are using two cultivars. First Early Girl which is a hybrid that will have its first medium sized fruit ready only 60 days after transplant. Second is Sunsugar, which is also a hybrid cherry type tomato, whose orange fruit will be ready in about 62 days. We plant these on around April 15th, so our target date will be right around the end of June. We have been using these two varieties for 5 years now and almost always have a few ripe tomatoes at the end of June!

Here are a couple of other varieties you might want to try, both are heirlooms with maturity dates as early as 65 days!

Jujube -is a cherry grape tomato ready in 65 days

Morning Sun is a yellow cherry ready in as little as 65 days!

How to plant your tomatoes

We always plant our tomatoes deep. I strip off any of the lower leaves and plant the tomatoes in a deep hole. Roots will then form all along the buried portion of the stem. The science is still out on whether this helps the tomatoes produce more fruit, but I have found that it helps the plants during our dry hot summers. It also makes the plants more stable to help deal with the strong winds we have in our area.

Once they are planted I water them good with a liquid fertilizer. We use fish emulsion to keep things organic but if you aren’t worried about organic you can just use any complete liquid fertilizer.

Then we put the Walls of Waterover the top and we are off to the races for the earliest tomato of the year.

I usually keep the tops open like this unless we are expecting really cold weather. When the weather is really cold we will close those tops up and maybe even clamp them shut.

The Walls of Water usually stays on until roughly the 1^st of June when all chance of frost is gone. Usually, by then the tomato plants have grown out the tops anyway. You don’t have to remove the Walls of Water. I know of some gardeners that just leave them on all year, but I think they are a little unsightly in the garden so I like to put them away in June.

Buy Our Growing Tomatoes Video Course

Tomatoes are one of my favorite topics! Along with my Growing Tomato Heaven video course there are several other resources for you on growing tomatoes!

Growing Tomato Heaven Video Course (Only $15 from this link)

Filling Walls O’ Water – YouTube Video

Planting Early Tomatoes – YouTube Video

How to plant tomatoes – YouTube Video

Ten Tips for Growing Tomatoes

Growing Sun Sugar Tomatoes

Freezing Tomatoes