When are you planting?

I'm gonna go half in on Thursday, then finish the rest about March 20. I have enough plants that if the early plants can't take it or get thunderstormed to death or who knows what else, I can replant all on March 20. Last year I planted out about this time of year and ended up covering with heavy plastic on about 3 nights of "late" cold weather. They all did well. I don't know if planting Thursday vs. 10 days after that will make any difference, but I'm hoping to find out this year whether it does or not. At any rate, the longer term forecasts call for plenty of sun starting Thursday and cool to mild temps.
What are you going to do?

I use 2'-3' bamboo sticks from Home Depot, but rebar should work.

Where I live, it gets hot really quick. When I plant with WOWs, I get ripe tomatoes before the heat sets in.

I am a HUGE fan of them.

Without, I would be waiting until fall for ripe fruit, and sometimes actually get none due to frost.

like hanasmom I use Bamboo stakes driven into th ground on the inside of the WoWs. It gets windy where I live and we have a long cool springs making the WoWs a great investment.

When I use WOWs I use short pieces of rebar.

Randy

It seems some readers believe Wall ÂO Waters are heaters. Kind of.
The main purpose of a Wall O Water is to temperature moderate. Think of water filled tubes as insulators during the day and then as the sun goes down, which should be about 3:30-4:30 if youÂre planting on the east. Heat dissipation is the function- the temp remains more constant as night time temps cool. In other words the water will actually insulate the plants from the burning Texas sun during the day, but not cool rapidly at night.

I actually donÂt use Wall ÂO Waters as season extenders  I use them as plant protectors to shield the tender seedlings. Curious birds and rabbits, gusty winds, cutworms, since I put down Diatomaceous earth around the inside at planting time. IÂve never supported them.
-Randy

They help here. I think rebar would work. Wall of water takes advantage of the high heat capacity of water as simmran said. I start out with the top coming to a point and almost sealing in the plant, in nice weather I open out the top a bit. When you remove them you have to harden off the plant because it is not used to the wind and hot sun. I remove mine after the weather gets warm at night. I only use them on some of my plants that I put out earlier than the safe from frost date. I got mine on sale; they are awfully expensive at the garden center.

Refid: I looked back and sure enough, last year I planted out March 4 and again on the 8th. Last year we had 2 or 3 nights in the mid 30s in late March. I covered in plastic and all did well. I think I'm going with that approach again and planting all out this week. Should every plant die, I have a back up and I'll keep those chugging along until I know the weather won't get those in the ground. What date are you thinking?

I use the WOWs and they really work -- I am usually eating tomatoes by the 4th of July...I've found that the weight of the water keeps them from blowing over but I am fairly sheltered from wind gusts

I'm waiting to plant here in Dallas, closer to the end of the month. The Spring Fever will hit full force this week. Not going to get lured into planting just yet. I have my seedlings in 22 oz cups, which gives me wiggle room and about an extra week to plant without them becoming root bound in the cups. Plus some of mine were sunburned a few weeks ago! I have been trying to nurse them back. Semi-disaster but I started 100 plants and only need about 30. I give away the rest usually.

My WOW's fall over without the aid of wind. Although, it was my first time using them and I made the mistake of filling them with high pressure water which broke the seal between the tubes. That may or may not have something to do with it.

I place mine around the base of my cheap tomato cages. It's enough to hold them up but they can't close at the top like a tepee. Also, it's easy to install them, but you have to remove the cage to get them off. Anything should hold them up. I believe I supported one with sticks I pulled from my compost pile.

refidnasb:
I'm in DFW and nearly as bad by growing way more than I have room for. I'm already working on finding homes for some of them. I really would like to plant out this weekend, but I want to wait and see what the 10 day forecast will be on Saturday.
Jerry, good luck with your WOW's. I've wanted to try them, but couldn't justify the cost for more than 10 plants. A bit too pricey for me.
Susan

I found 3 pack WOWs at Walmart, in the fall, for $3.

My WOWs fall without wind as well - garden is not flat. Any water evaporation or a hole in the tube, and mine topple. The bamboo saves my plants.

To aid in filling, I cut the bottom from a 5 gallon bucket and place that inside the WOW. Pull the WOW up to insure water went to the bottom of the tubes. Add the bamboo sticks to form a tee pee and remove the bucket.

I planted all mine out Sunday(Mar 7). I think it's a risk worth taking here in North Texas. I use raised beds, black plastic, and bricks as heat sinks. If, or probably when, we get a cold snap, I'll cover my raised beds and fire up the christmas lights for some extra heat.

Maybe I'll try the WOW's next year, they sound like they work. Good luck, Jerry.

Pete

I hadn't thought of Christmas lights. How festive.

Austinnhannasmom: Thanks. Sounds like a little juggling act going, but that makes sense to me now. As for the tee pee, do you close it entirely, leave it partly open, all way open?

Texans and other southern states folks, if you close the tee pee, will you cook the plants if the temp goes to 80? As corollary, if you don't close the top, how much good do they do?

Pete - I was close to planting out then, but decided to wait more week. Glad to know your plant date. Good luck.

I don't close the top and the plants do ok. Maybe not if we get snow but that's kinda iffy in March here.

I did a test last year. Wrapped 1/2 of my tomatoes that were in the CRW cages with frost proofing and did the other 1/2 in WOWs. They both did great. The ones in the cages got a little bigger but by the time they started blooming you couldn't tell which was which.

I must say the root systems on the those plants were amazing. They must have spent all that extra time growing massive root systems.

I prefer tunnels, which cover a whole row of plants, to WOW's. But when I tried WOW's they fell over constantly, and I inverted tomato cages and put the WOW's over them, so the cages taper toward the top like the WOW's. They held them up great.

This year, my WOW plantings will be later then in the past - my garden is under 2' of snow (first time ever in Feb). As such, I just started my seeds.

Normally, I like to plant in mid-March, starting seeds in mid-Jan to mid-Feb, so perhaps I'll plant at the end of March. With a mid-March planting, I don't quite fill the WOW tubes, maybe fill 3/4 full, so the tubes close more at the top. They rarely seem to totally close, so if a snow storm comes, I take rubber bands and close the tops. When the storm passes, I remove the binders. As the weather warms, I fill the tubes completely so the WOW opens more.

I think a tunnel would work better for my use, as I put out about 30 WOWs, tiring on the back!! Seems so much easier to just create tunnels. With tunnels, I could plant ALL of my plants early, instead of only the quantity of WOWs I have.

I also lay black plastic near the WOWs. This serves two purposes - less mud to track around because we can walk on the plastic and it helps to warm the soil. Straw also helps retain the heat at the root area.

I also think the plants grow incredible roots while sitting in the WOWs, or whatever product is used as a season extender. I have had plants get top growth damage from the cold/snow, but the advance on root development helps the plants recover quickly, once the WOW is removed.

Well, how did this work in the snow? We got about 5 inches here in central Dallas over the weekend. So glad I did not plant early!

Well, fate stepped in and I still haven't planted out. I have had excavation going on around my house looking into foudation problems (yuck) and the suckers dug up all of my beds, save about 3 feet of one bed. I'm currently constructing some of Ray Newste's earthtainers as it looks like I may have to deal with foundation stuff for quite a while. meanwhile, one black cherry and one black and brown boar have a couple of flowers on them and the plants are all about a foot tall and can't wait to get growing in an unrestricted home. Not what I wanted, but I couldn't figure any other way to salvage the season. Should be an interesting experiment anyway. Hopefully, next year I'll get my beds back.

Wow. That stinks. Upside is that that winter weather would have crushed them. I'm still in wait and see mode. Should have an idea by this weekend to plant or not. Moving all the tomato plants in and out everyday has started to become a real chore. Worth it in the end though.

I'm impressed with how early everyone gets started with their WOWs. Of course, Texas is a far cry from WA state where I live.

I've used them in the past, and regretted not-using them last year. Seemed like they got off to a much later start.

Now that I'm into measuring temperatures, mine were 60 degrees a couple of hours after setting them up yesterday. Last night the outdoor temp was 38, but I forgot to check the WOW temp this am. I hope they stayed warmer that that!

I had some leaky ones that I held up with bamboo stakes, but this year I replaced them so that I don't have to worry about it. Here the wind isn't bad and they stand up on their own. I thought about having one central stake, in case they fall over, so they won't damage the plant, and as a start for tying them up later in the season, but just getting them planted was enough for one day.

I've had quite a few wows collapse this year. My garden is not flat but I also suspect that the UV here is starting to degrade my old wows. (I've had some for 6 or 7 years.) The bamboo tee pees saved my plants. As I was setting up my drip line one day, a certain wow fell over three times!! The plant inside never knew it.

It is snowing now so I cut string and tied it around the wow tops. Some snow got inside the wows, but I'm sure it'll melt before the sun sets.