Worth it to grab two small plants now?

[shaefins]

I found two volunteer Roma tomato plants offered on freecycle.com. I don't believe they're very big at this point. Was thinking of putting them in 5 gallon buckets, as my beds are pretty full right now. Is this even worth it in zone 6A, given it's July 2?

[TZ -OH6]

Sure, you might get something before frost, and with the container you can move the plants to a frost free area temporarily.

[Gary350]

I will take almost anything that is free.

One year the local stores at the mall gave away all the tomato plans free on July 4th weekend so I got about 5 trays of tomatoes. I tilled a place and planted them all. July and August were very hot that year with not much rain so I had to water every day. About the end of August almost 2 months later the plants had grown only about a foot tall. September the weather got cooler with rain and the plants got larger with lots of green tomatoes. I had about 2 bushel baskets of ripe tomatoes in October. I kept the plants covered with a large sheet of clear polyethylene plastic every night to protect them from frost and I had ripe tomatoes until December. Better late than never.

[KathyWid]

Go for it! Planting tomatoes in containers (especially 5-gallon buckets) gives you even a better chance at success this late in the season than setting the plants out in the garden -- because your planting medium is more controlled.

Make sure you plant them in potting mix (to minimize diseases and fungi.) You will also need to fertilize them more often (every 1-2 weeks) than tomatoes that are placed in the home garden because containers leech out nutrients.

Most importantly with container tomatoes -- water them regularly (even daily).

Good luck!

[gixxerific]

Heck ya what they said.

I have some volunteers and some I planted late and some I planted even later. Some are still small right now but they are growing and as G350 later this fall when the earl's die off the later ones will pick up.

Or at least that is the plan.

I say go for it. Gardening is and adventure, so get crazy and let's garden.