We wait what seems like a long time before the first garden tomatoes start to ripen. This is especially true if you grew them indoors first from seed to transplant stage. Invariably, our tomato plants will face seasonal challenges, such as excessive heat and drought, stink bugs, stakes and supports that fail to hold up. The one problem we can always count on are the twin torments of all tomato gardeners – Septoria leaf spot and early blight.
Tomatoes
Protecting tomatoes against the cold
A picture worth at least a few words, which are: we are still expecting some cold nights coming up, so if you have tomatoes in the ground or are putting them in soon, give them some protection! I couldn’t wait any longer to get some of my huge plants in small pots into the ground, so I broke out all the protection devices I had lying around.
No endorsement implied (especially since I have limited to no experience with these devices), but from left to right:
Gro-Therm Perforated Transparent Film (over hoops)
Kozy-Coat
Pop-Up Tomato Accelerator
Weather Defender Tomato Cages
Also in the photo: one tomato left uncovered to see how it does in comparison. Off camera: stuck two with my cabbages under a big row cover tunnel.
If you don’t have any of this stuff, you can still protect your plants. Just watch the weather forecast and throw an old sheet over the plants when temperatures dip below 50, especially if there’s wind. (Use rocks to hold it down. Also cheap.) Your plants will live without protection unless we actually get a frost, but their growth will be slowed and perhaps stunted.
Yes, indeed, I should have waited to start my tomatoes so I could hold them inside until well after Mother’s Day. My only excuse is that some of us MGs did a little grafting project (with which I had some success!) and had to get both rootstock and scions started pretty early since the grafted plants are set back in growth during recovery. And for whatever reason I decided that since I was using a 50-cell tray to start the plants, I needed to fill every cell… plus start some others a week later just in case… anyone need some tomato seedlings?