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Growing Tomatoes

uh oh! nighttime temps

14 years ago

uh oh! the nighttime temps are going down to approx. 38 degrees tonite, I just planted 40 tom plants two days ago, will that low temp affect them in any way, or do i need to do something to protect them.

thanks in advance!

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Comments (6)

User
14 years ago
Drop a row cover or old sheet over them.
digdirt2
14 years ago
Yeah I sure would cover them or wrap the cages. Some sort of protection will be needed. Supposed to go down to 38 degrees here tonight too but then we don't plant out here for another 2-3 weeks.

Where are you located - garden zone? city? What are the chances that you planted too early for your zone? What were your soil temps when planted? If the soil was warm enough then the roots will still be ok even if you get some top damage or stunting.

Dave
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When we have a county burn ban, our commissioners usually lift it once our KBDI drops below 600. I don't know that the OFS uses that same criteria when making recommendations to Gov. Fallin, but I have been expecting them to lift the ban for some counties for a couple of weeks now, so the move didn't surprise me. We are having small fires in our county, but nothing that has gotten the least bit rowdy or out-of-control lately, so I think that they could lift even our burn ban (our KBDI is 661 this morning) right now (which they did not), and we wouldn't have serious wildfire trouble at this point in time. The trouble will come after you have a few frosts and killing freezes if it is still very dry and then you have all that dry, standing vegetation which will burn easily whether it is dead annual vegetation or dormant perennial vegetation. We need to have a really wet fall and winter so that the winter fire season isn't bad. Nothing about our soil is in good shape, Larry, except where I've been watering in the veggie garden and around the fruit trees. We're starting to see cracks in the soil near the house where we haven't had them before, so today and tomorrow I'm going to try to water long and hard in those areas to try and get those cracks to close back up. I'll probably have to water a while, let it soak in, then water again, etc. You know how hard it is to get clay to absorb water when it is rock-hard. Carol, I imagine it will be a real relief to everyone to be able to burn that piled up wood from the big storm that hit your area. As long as it is sitting there, it is such a fire hazard. I'd rather be able to burn that stuff deliberately and have it under control than to have a raging wildfire burn through the area and get it. Some of the Texas counties have been lifting their burn bans here and there along the river. One county made the announcement lifting their burn ban, then said that people should NOT go out and burn brush or do prescribed burning of land for brush removal because it still was too dry to burn. That made me wonder why they lifted the burn ban if they were going to stand there and say "but don't do any burning". That whole thing made no sense. Dawn
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californian
14 years ago
As long as the nighttime temperature stays above 38 I don't think you have to do anything to protect the plants. In fact you might do more damage to them breaking branches off laying a sheet on top of them compared to just doing nothing. I have had my tomato plants out for almost three weeks now and it has dropped to 43 degrees half a dozen times since then, and down to 47 most other nights and it hasn't phased them, in fact over half of them have flowers on them already. A friend has a volunteer tomato plant that overwintered outside all winter and it dropped as low as 32 several times and it kept growing and has tomatoes on it right now and she never covered it.
However my plants were thoroughly hardened off, if yours aren't it might be a different story, and I guess it wouldn't hurt to assume worse case scenario that it might drop to freezing in certain localized areas where cold air might pool up like low spots or the bottom of the north side of a hill, so if you think that may happen maybe you should try to protect them, but 40 plants would take an awful lot of old sheets.
darlene4022
Original Author
14 years ago
digdirt, I live in texarkana and zone 8. I will probably have to wrap the cages with something, maybe plastic trash bags, the large ones. I hate to take a chance on them since I raised them babies from seed! Thanks californian, I will check the weather again before dark and see if 38 will be the final temp. thanks again y'all.
darlene
homegardenpa
14 years ago
You should protect them. Do a search, if the nighttime low is supposed to drop to 38, then the temps right above the ground can drop even lower, even to freezing, given the right conditions. Most forecasted temps are given at some height above the ground and don't actually indiciate the lowest possible temp at just above ground level. You can still get a frost at 38 degrees.
darlene4022
Original Author
14 years ago
I just checked nite time temps, it will be 38. I have decided to put plant pots over them, I have plenty of them!
I sure thank you all for the quick response, you may have saved my babies!:)
Darlene

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