I would not buy any seedlings that have fruit or a lot of blossoms on them or are root-bound in their pots. The plant has given up trying to grow bigger and is now desperately trying to grow fruit. It may be difficult or impossible to coax the plant back to growing vegetatively which is what you want.
If you buy a seedling that has a few blossoms on it, I'd suggest pinching off all blossoms before planting, to get the plant to focus on growing roots first, then plant, then fruit.
Twenty 4 x 12 raised beds? You should be able to grow some serious tomatoes in that space.
I hope everything goes the way you are planning.
You can find out more about Chef Jeff at the
website. They are grown in
Michigan and shipped down. They are very healthy, stocky plants, and they have about 60 different tomato and pepper varieties including Aunt Ruby's German Green, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Brandywine. It was unthinkable just a few years ago that there would be a national brand of interesting tomato variety seedlings available throughout the U.S.. Of course I'd like to see them expand their variety selection and drop others.
Between Chef Jeff and some of the fantastic varieties the local nurseries are growing, I could honestly not grow ANY from seed and have many different kinds of great tomatoes.
What's that sound? Oh, it's a whimpering, hissing sound from my tomato seed box which has over 110 varieties of tomato and pepper seeds in it. So much for that idea.