"... can cold weather do permanent damage?"

It can kill the plant as a whole if it's too cold, but provided that it does not the worst thing that will happen is a little die-back with some stunting.

I plant my tomatoes deeply every year, and last year we had a cold snap in early may that damaged a few of my plants. Some of the plants looked they were completely killed when, in fact, only the parts above ground got wiped out, the plants sent out new stems from right at, or in some cases below, the soil surface.

Provided that the plants are decently established and happy, they can take a decent amount of abuse, but I don't recommend chancing it if you have the choice.

What I mean is...assuming they survive, is there any reason to believe they won't be Just Fine?

I have many extra seedlings. The weatherm at the moment, is great, and is predicted to be great for as long as the weather forecasters are willing to venture a guess. If I plant now, and it plays out that the weather continues to be great for the next 3 weeks or so until normal planting time, I get a big jump on the season, right? If the weather turns cold again and the frost kills them off, I can just plant some of my extras.

Right? Or is there some middle ground I'm unaware of, where the frost doesn't kill them, but they're in worse shape for the remainder of the season?

Tomato plants are susceptible to chilling injury at temperatures between 32 and 42 F. Chilling can cause stunted growth, wilting, surface pitting or necrosis of foliage, and increased susceptibility to disease. Low soil temperatures also stunt plant growth and prevent root development. Temperatures below 50 F during flowering can interfere with pollination and result in catfacing of fruit.

Pepper plants experience chilling injury with prolonged temps of 32-50 F. Injury may show up as puckering of the leaves and stunting of the plant.

I hope that helps.

Betsy

Betsy, this does help, but doesn't fully answer the question of whether a tomato plant will recover from those things. I see that there's a risk of losing a few leaves, which I understand, but the plant will be perfectly capable of growing new ones, right?

I think it's an interesting question to figure out what risks to take. According to the weather prediction, it seems that the days (and nights) over the next 10 days are predicted to be very favorable, and I would consider normal plant-out time to be in 20-25 days. If I could predict the weather perfectly, this would be an easy answer, but of course I can't.

I might plant out half of them, or some other percentage, and compare. I feel like the weather this year is shaping up to be advantageous for early tomatoes, and this coincides with a "Help, I have too many seedlings!" year, so maybe it's time for an experiment.

I think most of my peppers will be in planters (since they thrive there, and I'm running out of bed space), so those will be planted as soon as I get a bag of potting mix -- planters can be brought inside if the weather doesn't look good.

A couple of things. First of all, I've found that planting out early doesn't seem to be a huge advantage. Plants put out later seem to catch up and yield the same. Some indeterminates such as cherries may yield a bit more planted early, but for the most part you won't yield more, but I understand you wanting to get out in the beautiful weather and plant.

If you plan to plant out early, have a frost plan available. There are several ways of dealing with frost, from cloches to coverings, to misting, or fires. I would make sure you have a frost plan ready before planting out. That's even a good thing if you plant at your normal time, as surprise frosts can happen, but it's especially important when planting out early. Whether a plant thrives after a cold snap is really determined by how cold it actually gets, and what steps you take to mitigate it.

Leira,

Chilling injury can permanently affect your tomato plants. They will often times appear to totally grow out of it, but depending on how much they were injured they may never fully recover.

How do I know? Last spring, we had cold wet weather at plant out time, and most of my tomatoes went out 2 to 4 weeks later than normal, with the temperatures being much better at the 4 weeks late planting.

The tomatoes that went out first, just sulked and sat there and didn't grow during the first week or so that they were in the garden. The later ones took off and surpassed them by leaps and bounds and had far more tomatoes on them by the time we had our killing frost.

If you have the means to protect them from cold (especially the soil) then putting them out early may be beneficial. Especially if you can warm the soil, such as with clear plastic. (I have too many plants to do that.)

Horticulturalists H. G. Taber and R. Gansemer at Iowa State University conducted a study in 2001 and found that tomatoes require a soil temperature above 60 degrees Fahrenheit for ideal shoot growth and first flower cluster development.

Betsy

Here is a link that might be useful: University of Idaho on ground temperatures

Although frost occurs, by definition, when the temperature drops to 0� C at 1.5 meters above the ground, this may or may not result in freeze damage to crops. The actual temperature at which freezing will occur depends on such factors as plant species and variety, plant vigor, soil conditions, surface cover, duration of the freezing temperature, thawing conditions, cloud cover, and wind conditions.

In tomato, freezing causes a darkening of the leaf or stem tissues. Damaged areas later wilt and turn brown. It may be difficult, initially, to determine whether the growing point has been killed and damage may become more evident on the day after the frost. Peppers are more sensitive than tomatoes to freezing temperatures and may be injured or killed by a light frost.

Tomato plants are also susceptible to chilling injury at temperatures between 0 and 5� C. Chilling can cause stunted growth, wilting, surface pitting or necrosis of foliage, and increased susceptibility to disease. Low soil temperatures also stunt plant growth and prevent root development. Temperatures below 10� C during flowering can interfere with pollination and result in catfacing of fruit.

Pepper plants experience chilling injury with prolonged temps of 0-10� C (32-50� F). Injury may show up as puckering of the leaves and stunting of the plant.

The effect of temperature on flowering in tomatoes and peppers
It is well known that flowering, pollination, and fruit set of tomatoes and peppers can be adversely affected by temperature extremes. The effect of various temperatures during flowering and fruit set of peppers and tomatoes is shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1: The effect of temperature during flowering and fruit set of tomato Temperature
Effect on flowering, pollination, fruit set
Greater than 35� C (95� F)
Reduced fruit set
18.5 - 26.5� C (65-80� F)
Optimum for fruit set
Less than 13� C (55� F)
Misshapen or catfaced fruit may result
Less than 10� C (50� F)
Poor fruit set

Table 2: The effect of temperature during flowering and fruit set of pepper Temperature
Effect on flowering, pollination, fruit set
Greater than 32� C (90� ) day temp.
Pollen sterility occurs, flowers may drop
16� C (61 � F)
Optimum for flowering and fruit set
Less than 15.5� C (60� F) or greater than 24� C (75� F) night temp.
Poor fruit set

What you may not think about when you see blossoms and fruit developing, is that low temperatures experienced by the plant weeks before flower buds were visible, can also affect flowering and fruit set.

A tomato plant which experiences temperatures below 15.5� C (60� F) for extended periods of time will begin to flower profusely. These flowers may remain open on the plant for several weeks, without fruit being formed. Larger flowers and increased branching of clusters can show up as a result of low temperatures experienced by the plant weeks before flower buds are visible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Believe it or not�
Daytime temperatures of 15.5�C (60�F) with night-time temperatures of 10�C (50�F), four to five weeks before a tomato flower cluster blooms, may result in misshapen or catfaced fruit.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fact�
Night temperatures of 7-10�C (45-50�F) during pepper flower development can cause the fruit to be smaller than normal, or somewhat misshapen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chilling and freezing injury of tomato and pepper fruit
The fruit of warm season crops like tomato and pepper can be injured by low temperatures. Chilling injury occurs in tomato fruit if they experience temperatures of 10� C for longer than 14 days or temperatures of 5� C for more than 6 to 8 days. Tomato fruit exposed to a shorter duration of low temperatures may still be prone to storage problems, even if obvious injury did not occur in the field. Pepper fruit can be injured by prolonged temperatures below 8� C.

Frost injury is more severe than chilling injury. Tomato and pepper fruit are usually damaged between 0 and -1 � C.

I have experimented with planting early. I have found that I do better to go to my garden and take my post hole diggers and fill up pots with garden dirt. I then put my plants in the dirt they will grow in and keep them in the hot house until a couple weeks after Easter. They always outperform the ones I start early. This year, I got stupid and set out early because of the warm weather and have lost half my crop to frost damage.

Terrybull: excellent post. That certainly explains and confirms my observations that planting early does not improve yields, even if the weather holds out.

I wouldn't plant out unless your lows are going to be above 50. They just will not grow if night temps are less than 50. I put out mine on February 10 because it was so warm in Texas. But after a month, they had grown maybe an inch.

That actually set me back because my tomatoes were 3 inches tall when they would have been about 10-12 if I had kept them inside at night. May not get tomatoes from some of mine as a result.

However, given that you do not have to worry about it getting too hot in Massachusetts, it probably wouldn't hurt you any to plant unless the frost comes.

When they are planted early here we sometimes have to put them into wire cages and wrap them with heavy plastic wrap to keep the temps up at night and in case of strong winds. For this homemade cages are the best from pig fence construction.

This is a possible problem not to do with frost. I got my garden started very late last year and not wanting to repeat the same mistake I planted very early this year. The weather was beautiful and being fairly new to the south I went ahead and planted in early/mid march. While frost hasn't been a problem, the tomatoes and zucchini started blooming almost immediately. I plucked the blooms as they were young plants and I wanted them to grow before starting to bloom. Not sure how this might stunt growth if left unpicked? Not sure if that is temperature or hours of sunlight related? But a non frost related possible problem for you. The early plucked plants are doing well as of now in mid april.

So Leira did you get the answer to your question? Is there any risk but frost? Yes, several. Is the damage permanent or will the plants recover? Some times they recover, yes. Often no, it is permanent. And you won't know the long term effects until it may be too late in the season to replace them.

So is the risk worth it? Is what you 'might' gain worth what all you risk losing? For some who want to experiment and learn, maybe. For most gardeners, no.

That's why all the forums have had so many I-want-to-rush-the-season-thanks-to-this-neat weather posts this year - all from relatively new and/or inexperienced gardeners while all the old dirt-mongers keep advising patience. :)

Not what you wanted to hear I'm sure, sorry.

Dave

Well, digdirt, I "sort of" got an answer. I got some good information, to be sure. Of course, I've been dragging my feet, so with each passing day, the point becomes more and more moot.

My vague plan is to plant half of my Romas now, and half later, since that's the variety I'm growing in the greatest quantity, and see how it goes. This will be an interesting experiment, but it's not like I'll be able to translate it to next year, because this year's weather is this year's weather, and next year's weather is next year's weather.

I'd say that most people in my area consider mid-May to be planting time. The big-name companies like Burpee, who claim to send your plants to you "at the right time to plant" send them closer to the beginning of May. The extra-cautious won't plant until the end of May.

I keep thinking of a former coworker who told me that he'd been planting his tomatoes on April 23rd every year for the last several years, and how they'd always done well. He's further inland than I am, so his nights are, on average, much colder. I have the ocean and the city to mediate my night temps, so my micro-climate is probably pretty favorable.

The long-range forecast continues to look good. I checked the temp of my soil yesterday, and at about 4 inches down, under a huge pile of mulch (which has since been moved, so I can plant), the soil was about 58F.

I really think that things look good for this year...but it's already late April, and if I keep waffling, or otherwise delaying because there are other things going on in my life, I'll never know!

I did stick a bunch of marigolds and a couple of basils into the ground this afternoon, in a raised bed up against a concrete retaining wall, so at least I leapt on *something*. I still have more of each (I over-planted this year), and they've been living outdoors in their cellpacks for quite some time now, so I figured I'd give it a shot. The volunteer marigolds are up in force, so I think those, at least, are a good bet. The tomatoes have also been spending almost all the time outdoors, though I have brought them in at night if the predicted temp was under 45.

Also, digdirt, in case you were wondering, I'm not a new gardener. I probably have 40 years under my belt, if you count the time spent at my grandmother's knee...I'm just not usually on-the-ball enough to be planting early, and I've historically been pretty risk-averse even in the years when I was. My more common question is, "If I transplant tomatoes in late June, do you think any will ripen before frost?" (The answer, by the way, is "yes," if you go to the nursery and get one of the left-over biggish plants that they probably intended to send off to the patio of a city-dweller.) It's feast or famine for me, I guess!

Thanks to everyone for the input. If I do actually plant any tomatoes early, I'll be sure to come back and let you all know how it went.

I'm in Massachusetts too, and the nights are COLD. I'm not even ready to harden off. I keep looking at the long range forecast but the lows are still not encouraging. I'm not risking all that early care. Almost reliably, the plant out date is Memorial Day.

susan2010, I'm near Boston. We haven't seen a night under 40 in quite some time, and rarely under 45. There are no under-40 nights, and only one under-45 night, predicted in the 10-day forecast from any source I consult (not even among the ones that disagree wildly with each other).

My seedlings have been hardened off for a couple of weeks, I think, with only the occasional indoor night. Most of my neighbors actually start their tomatoes outdoors in cold frames, or in makeshift mini-greenhouses.

I grew up in Massachusetts, so I know what you mean, but near Boston is another beast entirely. Really. Average last frost dates have been creeping earlier in recent years, too. It's near the 1st of May for my city, and I can't think of a frost later than that in the last few years (and I watch the weather like a hawk at that time of year).

When I was a child, my grandmother in Rhode Island would never plant tomatoes before Memorial Day...but that's pretty crazy where I live now. Even if I didn't trust my own experience, I very much trust my elderly neighbors, who have been gardening in this neighborhood for 40 or 50 years -- and they plant their tomatoes out in early May, every year. EVERY SQUARE INCH of their back yards is a garden, no foolin', and probably 80% of what they grow is tomatoes. They know what they're doing! I trust my very local, very experienced, and very successful elders on this topic.

I have to say, I wouldn't go by what many big name companies say about planting times. I've see way too many complaints over the years with plants being delivered way too early or late.
Anyway, I do not plant out until the nights are consistently about 50 degrees. I've found no advantage to early planting. I do have to say, I do not use wall-o-waters. I know others who do and claim to be quite successful with that.
I would never plant them all out early that is for sure. So even if this time around it works, and the early ones are happy, don't be lulled into thinking it is safe. It is a gamble. I've read too many horror stories of ruined plants over the years.
Remy

I intended to try out walls-o-water this year (or actually Kozy Koats), since I bought them a few years ago and haven't ever taken them out of the package. I think it's too late to really be worth it this year, though, assuming it's worth it at all.

My point, though, Remy, is that we're fast approaching the point where the tail end of the long-range weather forecast, which is currently telling me "looks great" is getting very close to the date that I would normally consider safe. Not that I put a lot of stock in a weather report for more than a week out, but it would have to change a *lot* to cause a big problem, and with tiny plants, constructing a cloche out of an old bucket (of which I have several) is easy. It's an interesting proposition for this particular season. The only thing I think I lose is the ability to look at the long-range forecast on my normal plant-out date.

Actually, now that I think about it, the easy availability of a long-range weather forecast has certainly made me bolder over the years...but then again, I'm pretty sure my elderly neighbors aren't using that.

I understand that we may disagree about the particulars of where our respective comfort levels lie, but if I get to the point where my normal planting date is 10 days away, and the 10-day weather forecast looks great (again, by the standards that caused me to select my normal planting date to begin with), and I know the soil is already warm (because I got a thermometer and checked it), it seems to me that planting should be just fine.

And you raise a good point about the effect of what I call rush planting on different varieties.

Given the chronic problem Romas have with BER anyway and given the big role that weird spring weather plays in BER I'd be much more inclined to rush a beefsteak or such variety before I'd rush a Roma or any other paste tomato variety. They benefit from late planting rather than early planting.

Like you if we are only talking a few days and those few days look fine then no problem. But the danger lies in what folks consider their "normal" date. For example, the normal plant date without protection for my zone has been last week in April to the first week of May for over 40 years and I have still gotten burned several times. So I find dates earlier than that for folks living far north of me to be suspect. But it is their risk to take. :)

Dave

PS: my new gardeners comment above wasn't so much directed at you as at posts in general. All the gardening forums all over the web are inundated right now with posts from gardeners wanting to rush the season, by weeks. Gardening patience seems to be in very short supply this year and there will be a price paid by many down the line.

If only the Amish farmers in our area could post to this site. Most of the ones I've seen in our area have tomatoes planted out in their gardens- but they are using jugs, baskets, hoop houses, make shift tee pees, etc. to protect them overnight. I'm not going to condemn waiting for a little more consistently warmer weather but I see the Amish gardeners in this area as real competition to my tunnel grown tomatoes. i hope to have tomatoes to pick in a month but they will be only a few weeks behind.

In reality almost everyone has had a failure of some sort or another with tomatoes but I've found that they are one of the most forgiving crops you can grow. I've seen more of my plants lost to high temperatures than low and despite what all the data shows about lower temps and catfacing, this spring I've allowed my tunnel tomatoes to endure low 40'sF more than a dozen nights and every tomato I see developing looks OK. I credit the success at lower temps with fans blowing the plants throughout the night.

My philosophy- Go for it. Just borrow an old blanket from the guest bedroom and cover your plants on cold nights.

If you planted, let everyone know how your plants do after the next few nights in the 30's. We have a fire in the wood stove tonight.

How are they?

I am looking at my whole mess of plants and contemplating the gamble. I don't mind if they stay in limbo for a bit. They are getting awfully big for their pots some of them, and the tomato leaves are turning their usual purple from deficiency. Would having them sit in limbo in the garden until it warms be a lesser evil? Just wondering.

Reporting back - I had a few out in the last month (covered) that withstood 7 nights below 45, with the lowest temp being 40. Again these were covered at night.

I had several more that went out 2 weeks ago, unprotected, and had to withstand 3 nights below 45, the lowest low being 42.

So far, all of them look absolutely perfect. Yet, after reading this thread, im freaked out that they may have suffered a chilling injury that will affect production, so im tempted to go out and get some nursery starts. My normal plant out date is tomorrow, May 1...