If you can't cover your tomatoes, I wonder if you can just bag as many fruits as possible. Next time you are at the produce department, it might be worth grabbing a bunch of those thin bags to give it a try. That way you can protect the skin of the fruit from any frost from the wind's effect on surface water droplets, even if you can't take care of the leaves. God Luck!
PC

I would second this question--googling and searches provide more info on protecting babies. But, this year's weather is so goofy that I want to extend as long as possible.

So--what temps can the plants really go down to, without shutting down. We're already down to 50s at night, and could go lower this week. Day temps are 70-80s still. Some of my plants are 6-7' tall, and we do have a couple of frost blankets that can be used. Do the blankets have to go to the ground, or if they're over the tops, and say 3-4' down, will they hold enough heat (provided I keep the wind from blowing them off).

We are getting good production, and still have 100+ pounds (guess) sitting on to ripen.

To iffy for me here in IL thus I put all my effort into starting early, have my tomatoes in June and whatever comes now is a bonus...
it really depends on humidity, wind, proximity to large body of water like lake, soil temps, how long exposure lasted etc.
And putting floating row cover is PITA for large plants...

Linda - you've seen my "jungle" impossible is more like it! Soil temps have probably been low all summer (I haven't checked since planting), very heavy dews now, and I do have a pond just across that roadway from the tunnel, and a knob of ledge to the south (creating a frost pocket I'm afraid, unless some cold air can drain to either side of it, but that was the only fairly level spot we could work with to put the tunnel and I'm not growing in the winter).

Next year will be the year to start early - June would be great, I'd settle for July since the last few years have been August for first tomatoes!

And I'm not trying to keep up production (pollination/set), just want to get the ones that are full-sized to color break. I've probably got 500 lbs of green ones out there now, not all full sized yet, but with that forecast I don't know if I can get the smaller ones to full size and break in the next 3 weeks.

I leave my green tomatoes until a 32 degree night is likely. I'll usually pick them if the weather prediction is a low of 35 F since that raises a real possibility that it could end up being 32 at my garden and that freezes the plants which kills them. I've not experienced them being damaged in the high 30's or low 40's...never worried about that at all. They have ripened on the vine after temps like that. Taste is okay...less sunlight and cooler temps won't give best-of-summer flavor, but they are fine by me.

It sounds like you have quite a few plants. How about choosing two or three as ones for you to learn from this fall. Don't cover, don't pick greenies from them. Just observe temps and what happens to the plants and the fruit. I think you will find that as long as you are not at or below 32 your plants will be okay.

It also sounds like your immediate microclimate may be colder than surrounding areas. Therefore predictions of 40F may actually give you temps at your farm/garden of 35 or colder. You have to figure out how to "interprete" predictions for your local conditions. A max/min thermometer kept outside is helpful to get a handle on what goes on at your location compared to weather people predictions and actual temps measured at nearby cities. Than you go from there.

Peppers actually withstand more cold that tomatoes. I've had tomatoes go down in cold weather and had nearby peppers that lived on through a few weeks of Indian Summer weather.....not sure if they are okay to 28, 29, 30 or 31...but I do know they hold up through cooler temps than the tomatoes.

In the spring wet soil and cold soil temps keep me from transplanting tomatoes. However, if the soil has warmed and dried and it looks like most nights will be above 50F and days above 65F for the near future, I'll plant out at least some of my plants. If an unexpected cold night comes (temps predicted to be below 40), I'll cover the small plants. Usually they are fine, but if it gets to 32 under the protection and they die, I usually have extra transplants available to fill the empty spots. If spring weather predictions indicate no 32 or lower temps to come, but days and nights are still cool, I'll wait to plant. Tomatoes just sit there when temps are seldom above 65 and you don't gain anything from the early planting. For a large scale operation, I'd think a person would want to be more assured of warm weather to come without the need to pamper the plants. I can baby them some in the spring because there are less than 40 plants. If I had 100's I would probably do things differently.

With all that said.....I pulled most of my tomatoes the past few days, not because of cold, but because of disease. They hardly had any leaves and most of the fruit had ripened. I didn't want to look at the poor plants any more. Tomorrow I'm sowing a cover crop.

I do have a small community garden plot, so covering is an option for me. Not convenient, and I'm sure it's going to be a PITA, but I'd rather deal with it and save my tomatoes. I do start early--this year they were in prior to our final snowstorm (and a foot tall at that point) and did just fine with WOWs and the frost blankets. But things just didn't set quickly this summer. Thank you all for the input.

well, we are going into low 40 for several nights and days into 50-60... I think all my plants will survive but I will pick up anything with a color... still have plenty of Cowlicks and Estler's on the vine. Next year they are getting started March first and transplanted ASAP...

Covering (esp. just 1 here and there) is very hard with 6-7ft tall plants not pruned planted 2ft apart and FL weave. But I have the plastic and wiggle wire for the tunnel so hopefully we can get it covered before DH goes on his trip last week of Sept. Disease is hitting so I will probably pull some plants before then.

I've had the exact opposite experience with peppers - they don't withstand as cold as tomatoes do.

Yes, I do need to put a min/max thermometer out, maybe 2 so I can see how much warmer it's staying under plastic. Next year I'll be able to start earlier.

RE: How low can they go?

Forget the theories, the blogs, what he said, she said. I speak of my own real life experience.

My personal experience (gardening in GA and WA) shows that tomato plants are much tougher than most gardeners think. Just take this season:

I planted out starting April 15 but bulk of them around April 20th. (Our Last Frost Dat is about April 5th) From then up until early July we had lows in 40s(95%). There were maybe a total of 10 nights when lows dropped to under 41 to 37F. I did nothing as far as protecting my plants. They sailed though.

It is also true that my plant grew at a much slow rate. But even then I harvested my first ripe tomato on July 8th. Has it been
warmer that could've happened 2 weeks earlier.
If I wanted to wait for perfect plant out weather, it would have been in July.

I was asking about end of season, how low can it get without covering and still have fruit ripen even if leaves are damaged. I wasn't asking about seedlings.

Ajsmama--

Good luck with your plants and maters. I dug some tarps out of camping gear and we picked a bunch, and hopefully can get the plants thru the next 24 hrs until it warms back into the 80s next week. But first, they're talking about snow! Yikes!

This reminds me of canning -- the other night at about 11pm with four more canner loads (having sauced 80lbs of apples) I was trying very hard to remind myself that I do this because I enjoy it! The garden part's the same way--lots of enjoyment, but oh the frustrations too!

End of season extension, is tough. Unless you have a high tunnel. Covering with blankets, sheets, tarp can be helpful for one or two nights but beyond that there is not much hope as the weather keeps getting colder. Even then , it is not going to do much help to get those small green tomatoes to full size and ripen. JMO

I don't know if we can get the plastic on the tunnel this weekend. Next couple of nights are supposed to be mid-high 40's, rain Sat night, and Sunday night/Monday AM low 41! I'm going to cover the 2nd planting of squash today, and see if I can make hoops to cover the peppers tomorrow but they're pretty tall too. Tomatoes are on their own (it will warm back up to mid-50's lows next week), the determinates are done anyway.

This post was edited by ajsmama on Fri, Sep 12, 14 at 11:25

We did not go lower than 45 last night and while I am wearing my fall coat, it is warming up slowly. Tomatoes did survived although feel like they are out of the fridge. I am anxious to check my cukes though, had a good supply going...

We picked this AM (DD and I) and while the sun was warm, she said the big tomatoes were cold. My cukes have been over for a while, I'm hoping the 2nd planting of squash survives the weekend b/c there are some nice ones coming, just slower than they were when it was warm. Still waiting for ripe peppers.