Question
I planted tomatoes last weekend because it looked like we were going to have warm weather, but yikes! it says it will snow tonight. How can I protect my little tomato plants?
Answer(s)
Wall'o'waters, the water-filled plastic cylinders work very well to insulate tender tomatoes and peppers from late frost and freezing nighttime temperatures. The walls of the cylinder are pockets of water that absorb heat during the day and release heat at night. Most of the time, the top of the cylinder should stay open so that heat can vent out during the day. During very cold nights, you should either pinch the top closed or cover it with insulating material.
If you have too many tomato plants to use wall'o'waters, frost cloth will help prevent frost damage. This is a spun polyester type fabric that is lightweight enough to not break or smash your plants, but retains ground heat enough to prevent frost damage unless temperatures drop too low.
Hot caps are an old-fashioned paper "cap" that you can stake down over small tender plants on frosty nights.
If you don't have any of these things, put a bucket over the tomato plants and weight it down with a rock.
Good gardening!
Other Questions In This Topic
- My squash plants turned white and wilted this summer. What happened?
- I still have a lot of green tomatoes on the vine but it looks like frost is getting the better of them (the vines, not the fruit yet) the past few nights. I plan on using the tomatoes for Chili Sauce. If I pick the green tomatoes are they going to ripen inside? Is there a better way to get them ripened to use for chili sauce?
- How can I store my fresh garden fruits and vegetables?
- How do I go about planting yams? We have already started the roots forming in a jar of water but need to know how to plant them. Thanks for your response. Duane
- Do you have nutrient information on fall vegetables?
- I have some shrubs that have been dying off in a wierd manner. Just sections at a time will completly die in a matter of a day or so, not even time to try and treat it. There are no outward signs of bugs and the rest of the shrub will be perfectly healthy. It has done this to more than one of my shrubs and also done this to more than one kind of shrub. It started last summer where I lost part of a couple and one hole shrub. I thought I had it taken care of by the end of the summer but when I mowed last week for the first time I noticed I have almost totaly lost another and there are spots on some others. The plants have been here for as many as 10 years or so and are very well taken care of. The only thing I can think of is about 3 years ago I put new plastic down and new bark, could the new plastic cause this.
- What causes plants to look dirty and lose their green color during the heat of the summer? One culprit is spider mites.
- By the end of June, our apple tree looked sickly, with faded, curling brown leaves. I am wondering if the leaves look the way they do because my husband doesn't spray regularly or because the tree is not getting enough water in our arid climate. When he does stick to a schedule, it seems that the leaves don't look much better. This is a tree that is nearly twenty years old. I have never noticed an infestation of bugs. Apples have gotten smaller and smaller by the year, most have worms. The tree is in our front yard and I really would like it to look healthy, regardless of whether or not we get eatable fruit. What should we do?
