I plant all my tomatoes deep so just the top is sticking out of the dirt, and then I cut a length of cardboard toilet paper roll and surround the stem to act as a cutworm collar. I add a mixture of steer manure, lime, bonemeal, worm castings and organic fertilizer to a 1 foot planting hole and mix with a shovel before placing the tomato plant in the whole.  Water well with a B-12 Starter fertilizer to reduce transplant shock and your tomatoes are off to a great start!

 

Here in the Pacific NW, zone 7-8 with our sometimes cold and wet spring weather, we need to help out our tomatoes a little. I use Wall-O-Waters around most of my tomato plants. I think they do help force an earlier harvest.  Early varieties planted around the 15th of April will usually give me a few tomatoes the first week in July. I have picked tomatoes as early as June 20th, but that is pretty rare.

 

I get my Tomatoe plants mostly from Millennium Farms in Ridgefield, Washington.  Mike Stucky has been a great resource for me over the years. Millenium Farms always has a nice selection of heirloom tomato varieties, plus they have lovely fresh eggs.

This year I took a trip out to Uncle Wayne's Tomatoes in Eagle Creek, Oregon

I was able to pick up some Stupice plants and I also am trying out a new grape tomato called "Jelly Bean".