Keeping tomatoes warm for a jump on the weather

12 years ago

Last year I used the "layered" mulch, bone and blood meal, for my raised garden. I then covered and tacked to the inside of the garden box DeWitt Weed Barrier cloth (Home Depot)covering all of the dirt. I had purchased various tomatoes from my local nursery, put them into one gallon pots to which I had removed the bottoms with a band saw. The pots were set on newspaper to retain the dirt in them. Using an empty pot I turned it on its top on top of the weed block, drew around the top to form a circle. With a box knife I cut a six pointed X inside, almost to edge, of the circle. With one hand holding the newspapered pot I gently lowered the tomato pot with the paper into the newly formed hole in the weed block. Pressing the edge of the pot almost up to the top of the pot I nestled it into the garden. My tomatoes' roots grew out the bottom and I got really great sturdy growing plants out the top. Watering was done with drip hoses layed on top of the weed block. I made a PVC pipe cover with painters plastic to keep the weather at bay during our late April rains and opened it all up on those rare sunny days. The cover came off long about late June with plants ready for the season. It works great and I am going to use it again this year.Bon Apetite!!

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Comments (7)

digdirt2
12 years ago
A similar idea is the use of the WOW's - the Wall o' Water plastic tube tents. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, keeping the plants warm hasn't been needed this year in many parts of the country.

Enjoy your tomatoes.

Dave
sue_ct
12 years ago
You know Dave, I tried the WOW when they were fairly new. I couldn't master getting them OFF the plants reliably without damaging the plant. Don't know if I was doing something wrong or if some damage is acceptable to many people. By "some damage" I mean a main stem broken or at least the growing tip, or loss of one or more main branches. Out of 6-8 plants 2-3 were probably damaged. Is there a technique?
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digdirt2
12 years ago
I hadn't tried them for years but dug out a few this year - when it turned out I probably didn't need them - and still happened to have the instruction sheet (something I rarely hang on to). It says something like gently squeeze most of the water out of each tube and carefully lift up over the plant. Yeah, right!

Took wife and I both and we could have used a 5th hand but we did get them off with no damage to the plants, just soaked jeans and feet for us. I think the trick is to get them off before the plant gets too big.

But I do have to admit that those 3 plants are well ahead of the others recently planted. They have fruit set on them and I normally wouldn't even be planting out for another 2 weeks.

Dave
jwr6404
12 years ago
Sue
I usually use the WoWs. To remove them I insert 3 or 4 garden stakes inside the WoW prior to removing it from around the tomato plant. Once I remove the WoW I remove the stakes and use them on the next Tomato plant. I continue this until all the WoWs have been removed. I use the 3ft garden stakes that can be purchased at HD/Lowes etc.
dirtguy50 SW MO z6a
12 years ago
Hello everyone, this is my first post. Have really enjoyed the reading so far. My question, Trying to get a jump on tomatoes and have had them in the garder a couple of weeks because of the rare nice weather in the 80's. The next couple of nights are to dip into the upper 40's and wandered if I should cover up the plants. They do have a few blooms on them. Thanks for any information as I really appreciated it.
digdirt2
12 years ago
Hi dirtguy50 and welcome. No upper 40s won't hurt them. I tend to cover them if we get down to 40 since I know it will be colder than that at ground level.

We had such a nice long run of upper 50 and 60 degree nights that I decided to jump the gun with a few test plants too. After the next couple of nights the long-term forecast looks good unless we get hail storms.

Dave
dirtguy50 SW MO z6a
12 years ago
Dave,
thanks for the help. The forcast is now saying 40 on Thurs night, so I may cover them that night at least.

Keeping tomatoes warm for a jump on the weather

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digdirt2

sue_ct

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