Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - Dwarf tomatoes/Pacific Northwest question

Gardeneer · September 15, 2017

I have gardened in Redmond, WA area for 4 years, in a place that I use to get about 5 hours of direct sun.
SHORT SEASON ?: if you take LFD and FFD as gauge, the season is not short at all ( mid April to mid November ). But as somebody has already mentioned (?) it is the cool temperatures that slows down quite a bit when it comes to growing tomatoes and pepper. The night lows stay in 50s until mid July, even though I used to plant in mid April. Come end of September it get cold again and the rain season begins, casing grey mold disease. Plus the tomatoes on the vines won't ripen. So that is a short warm weather crop season. But despite all that I manage to grow and harvest just about any variety that I wanted. But the amount of ripe tomatoes harvested was very limited in quantity and time span.
Don,t be misled by USDA zoning numbers. For example it is tha same (8a) in Seattle, Atlanta GA, Dallas TX and where I am at the southern Southeast tip of NC ( near Whiteville, NC).

DWARFS are not really early. Some of them are mid season at the best. Their advantage is requiring less garden space. Actually lots of them can be grown in 5-6 gallon containers.

September 15, 2017	#11
Gardeneer Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: NC - zone 8a - heat zone 7 Posts: 4,909	I have gardened in Redmond, WA area for 4 years, in a place that I use to get about 5 hours of direct sun. SHORT SEASON ?: if you take LFD and FFD as gauge, the season is not short at all ( mid April to mid November ). But as somebody has already mentioned (?) it is the cool temperatures that slows down quite a bit when it comes to growing tomatoes and pepper. The night lows stay in 50s until mid July, even though I used to plant in mid April. Come end of September it get cold again and the rain season begins, casing grey mold disease. Plus the tomatoes on the vines won't ripen. So that is a short warm weather crop season. But despite all that I manage to grow and harvest just about any variety that I wanted. But the amount of ripe tomatoes harvested was very limited in quantity and time span. Don,t be misled by USDA zoning numbers. For example it is tha same (8a) in Seattle, Atlanta GA, Dallas TX and where I am at the southern Southeast tip of NC ( near Whiteville, NC). DWARFS are not really early. Some of them are mid season at the best. Their advantage is requiring less garden space. Actually lots of them can be grown in 5-6 gallon containers. __________________ Gardeneer Happy Gardening !