As always, I started my tomatoes in regular garden soil, without bottom heat or supplemental lighting. As usual, some croaked. Every year I start them in a similar way and plant out under wall-o-water in March or April. Whether epigenetics or genetics, they seldom die in the spring any more. Those that do I simply replace.
I selected the first to come up, the subset that got secondary leaves while still in dim light (sunny windowsill, no supplemental lighting), and the best of those are now in my garden under milk jugs. Even with snow on the ground they're not complaining. One of the six is easily twice as tall as the rest and I'll be keeping an eye on it. Those six will be my seed tomatoes this year. Two of the other plants have been eliminated--one nearly died when it didn't get watered for a couple days, and the other was covered with aphids in the greenhouse.
Last year I was given a handful of plants. They had a very small survival rate under the same conditions. I think I ended up with fruit on two out of the ten. I was given two tomato plants this year. One croaked in the greenhouse, the other is out under a wall-o-water and getting frost damage even there.
Once I have the spring thing settled, I'll start working on autumn frost tolerance. I have noticed that the plants are much hardier than the fruit. The first frost of the season might not even touch the plants but the fruit bites the dust.
