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| Had 3 frosts so far... last night went down 29-30. Squash plants all died, Okra, Beans, Eggplant, Peppers... goodbye. The tomatoes... barely a scratch. They are much higher off the ground too, obviously. The cherries have new tomatoes on them!! It's barely past 50 the last week! WTF... I don't think tomatoes are quite as frost and cold sensitive as common wisdom suggests. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by PupillaCharites 9a (My Page) on Sat, Nov 8, 14 at 16:32
| Peter, sounds great, what variety of cherry are you growing thag did so well? Thanks PC |
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| The best one I have is the Tami G, the one plant I have has given me more grape tomatoes than I could possibly eat, and in less than ideal sun too. This is the one that was still blooming in terrible fall weather! I would def plant this guy again! The other ones I planted were Napa Grape hybrid and Super Sweet 100, they were both pretty good. The regular tomatoes are El Fresco hybrid.. I pulled off all the tomatoes a couple weeks ago and they have not made more, but the plants just won't die. The fruits did crack a lot in the fall. All of my tomatoes did well and lasted all season, and all of my neighbor's were dead in August. By far the most successful thing in my garden. |
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- Posted by PupillaCharites 9a (My Page) on Sat, Nov 8, 14 at 18:54
| Peter, rt_pleasant had a good thread comparing Tami G F1 and Santa F2, and got me excited to try Santa F2. The way the weather is cooling down this year so fast, I wish I had done a Tami G too instead of 3 Santas, since I love reports like yours more that the stuff on the seed company websites. They seemed pretty similar in production from what I remember reading there so this is nice to hear. I think Santa was a little sweeter than Tami, how did your Napa Grape compare to Tami? I've got Sungold, Santa F2, and Supersweet 100 going right now in our fall season which is really short. They weren't planted at the same time but all seem to be hit paydirt when their ages are within a week. I''ll find out about the cold soon enough. The way things are going it's going to be a bust with an early freeze and mostly green tomatoes. Last year would have been the opposite. Gonna have the El Niño weather bringing an early frost, which suks after all the work. Maybe the El Fresco just couldn't set fruits when it got cool, since cherry seem to do better in the cool weather for me. Next fall, I'm doing pure cherries, so this is great to know Thanks! |
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| I don't think tomatoes are quite as frost and cold sensitive as common wisdom suggests. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% That is what I always say, especially about planting out in the spring time. Many (here and elsewhere ) say that you should wait until night lows climb over 45F or even over 50F. But my own experience has shown that tomato plants can take as low as 36F without any ill effects. |
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| As far as the taste goes, honestly I can't tell that much of a difference between them, I don't really have that fine palate for tomatoes so I am not the one to ask. The Napa and the Super Sweet were sweeter than the Tami G. When cooking, I just mixed all my tomatoes together and it tasted awesome! The Napa did not like the cold Spring weather, and did not really start going until it got hot and it had plenty of time to adjust. I transplated them pretty The plants are all looking much sadder today.. but still alive for the most part (especially the El Fresco), and it took a 29-30 degree frost. 32 Degrees, scraping ice off the car... no sweat. |
This post was edited by Peter1142 on Sun, Nov 9, 14 at 9:26
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- Posted by fusion_power 7b (My Page) on Sun, Nov 9, 14 at 15:32
| Tomatoes can take one-off temps of 28 degrees and often bounce back with little ill effect. However, sustained temps below 45 degrees are devastating to them. Tomato plant biochemistry relies on rubisco which is part of the translocation biopath that moves nutrients and energy from the leaves, through the stem, and into the roots. Temps below 45 degrees pretty much shut down the entire translocation biopath though the most intense effect is around 35 degrees. So putting it in perspective, there are no surprises here. Tomatoes can take brief periods down to 28 degrees, but can't handle sustained cold temps. All common tomato varieties die dead dead dead below 28 degrees. There is a small amount of variation, I have a few lines that can take temps lower than 28 but absolutely cannot take frost forming on the leaves. I got several lines of tomato and grew them in 2013 to evaluate cold tolerance. This included numerous Russian lines as well as several wild species from TGRC. The short story is that all of them die when frost forms on the leaves. The longer story is that a few of them are able to continue growing at temps between 32 and 45 which is deadly for ordinary tomatoes. The best result of the 2013 growout was finding a S. Habrochaites line that is nearly immune to disease in my garden. There was also a S. Pimpinellifolium that is significantly better than any of my current lines for septoria tolerance. I grew F2 plants from crosses with these plants this year and plan to grow F3's next year in a search for better disease tolerance in a decent quality domestic tomato. |
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| I went out last night, as temps were dipping to the mid 20's and I wanted to get the last butternut, and there were MORE TOMATOES out on that plant. The last of the few blooms it had with temps around 50 went on to become tomatoes, and looked really nice despite a dead plant with frost forming on them before my eyes, a few were even blushing! |
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