Anyone near Essex? The classic Tomato Question...

Not a chance

Some of my tomato seedlings are out in an unheated greenhouse at the moment and have been for about 2 weeks, they have stopped growing which if fine for now, they are off the floor in pots so frost isn't a factor.

First make sure your soil temp isn't too cold (10c at least), then if the night time temps don't fall below 7 or 8c from now til start of summer then you can plant them outside now and the plants will do just fine.

However April and May usually have a fair few cold nights, and because of this it's likely you will regret planting them out early. Yes ok there's a good chance you won't get a frost but a few cool nights could end up halting the plant growth for a couple of weeks.

I learnt this lesson last year. Like you I fell to temptation and decided to plant them out early due to warm weather. I even had a cloche over them to protect them from a few slightly cool nights. June soon came along and they were growing very slowly still, even though the very warm weather had been around for a while at this point. Some other tomato plants that I put out in June soon overtook the early ones in terms of growth. Oh and the early ones also ended up being alittle leggy, the main stem ended up not growing straight up, and so overall not as much growth of any part of the plant and a severely reduced tomato crop.

My advice would be put them in small pots, harden them off then bring them in if a night time temp is forecast for below 10c.

mine have been in the gh for a good 3 weeks - although they are on shelving with fleece wrapped round, they seem fine. I do have a 'frost' protect heater in there though.