Greetings from Central Florida, where covering plants from the cold is an art form. We are able to grow many tender plants here, as frosts and freezes only happen a few nights out of the year, and as long as the freeze isn't too hard, most plants can be protected.

If you're trying to protect your tomato plant from a cold snap, the trick is to cover the entire plant all the way to the ground. You're trying to capture the heat rising from the ground and keep your plant a little warmer than the outside temperature. You want to do this in the late-afternoon before the temperature plunges with nightfall. I've kept plants from freeze damage well down into the 20s this way. If it gets into the teens then effectiveness declines rapidly.

Old sheets, blankets, cloth shower curtains and towels work well. They also sell frost cloth at the stores but I've never tried those products. Do not use plastic as that doesn't hold in the heat. Use bamboo stakes, sticks, garden tools, whatever you have on hand to support the cover so it doesn't break any parts of the plant you're tring to protect. Make sure the cover goes all the way to the ground on all sides, and hold it down with something (bricks, logs, boards, again, whatever you have on hand) to prevent wind from blowing the cover off. You may need to combine two or more sheets to cover the whole plant. Overlap the covers and use clothespins to keep them together.

Make sure you remove the cover before the sun shines on it the next morning. If it's too cold to take the cover off during the day, then it's probably too cold for this process to save your plant as you need heat from the ground for it to work.

Some people put Christmas lights or other heat sources under the cover to help provide more heat. I've tried this and it was successful, but there was no way to tell if the cover without the lights would have been fine, too.

One other point: moist soil holds more heat than dry soil. But you don't want it really wet. If the soil is dry, water early in the day so it'll soak in and dry off a little bit. You don't want any standing water (or wet foliage) that can freeze up during the night.

Good luck! Please let us know if your toms survive!

I would definitely pick all the fruit showing any color at all and let them ripen inside. There is nothing to be gained by leaving them on the vine longer anyway so no point in risking them.

As for the fully green ones, cover as suggested by Thetradition above.

Dave

hello we're just getting started on our fall garden down here in Central Florida I have a friend up there that wants to start garden can you send me a link to your club/forum. tommysgardens@gmail.com
Naturally yours Tommy

Thanks all for the help.