Tomatoes and a Chilly Night
Published by Scott M. Head on Monday, April 06, 2009 at 9:37 AMThe weather man is telling us it will get to 34 degrees tonight. Now for you northerners, that's no big deal, but down here its already been in the 80s and we wore shorts to the park yesterday. Talk online about tomato plants is varied, some say that anything under 40 degrees will set back tomato plants and stunt them, some say don't worry until it actually freezes. I'm going to go with the wait and see approach for two reasons. First, my tomatoes are doubled in size from when we put them out and all seem extremely healthy and should weather a brief spell of cold (its only going to be chilly for a few hours). Second, its usually a bit warmer than the official forecast in my area, since we are closer to the coast than the Houston weather guys. We average around 2 to 4 degrees warmer. I figure we will make it to 36 or so tonight, for a few hours max. We'll see.
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I am very worried for my tomatoes tonight. I had put in my tomatoes just before the last cold snap and some of them still haven't recovered (and some I had to replace). What do you think I should do to keep them warm? put a blanket on them?
gardener in southgate (houston)
Sorry to be so late in reply, I guess its too late.
Fortunately my tomatoes did just fine, hopefully that means yours did too!
My tomatoes looked fine this morning, I think they made it through (although the ones that got hit by the cold about a month ago still haven't recovered).
I think I will invest in a frost cloth.