To cover or bring inside...or not?

9 years ago

I have some Big Beef, Celebrity, and cherry tomatoes in buckets that I started in August, so they're a pretty good size now (the Big Beefs are about 5') and they have several small green fruits on them.

Tonight is our first cold snap of the season. Temps are expected to get down to 45 degrees F, back up to 69 during the day. At 45 degrees, is it wise to cover them or bring them indoors? Or will it not make any difference since there's no risk of frost?

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Comments (4)

Peter1142
9 years ago
IMHO they'll be fine. Cover in the 30's.
daniel_nyc
9 years ago
They will be fine outside.
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joflo723
Original Author
9 years ago
Ok - thanks a bunch!

Jo
PupillaCharites
9 years ago
Hi joflo

I would say it really depends. I am facing the same cold snap back to back nights as you except I'm looking at 40-42 F tonight after a high of 60, and tomorrow the same but barely 2-3 degrees warmer, here in 9a. I feel it will be ok but put a damper on the growth we really need. If I had an option to cover them, I would. That's because our cold snap has been caused by a set of two consecutive different cold fronts sweeping in less than two days.

The first one brought rain, and got the temp half way down, and nothing to worry about except maybe mold. The second one came in this morning and tonight's the night. The problem I worry about is temoperature is not all the story. We have a howling wind which is what happened since there are no clouds (not rain here) to moderate the cold sky tonight and the winds will continue howling.

The importance of covering is twofold. One is for temperature, but, if you are in howling winds 30 mph gusting regularly here today, the plants still will have moisture coming off their leaves and humidity causing condensation on them ... a very typical Florida scenario around 6 am when the temp bottoms out.Even if it is in the low 40's, with this howling wind, there is no guaranty the plants will be fine. Covered they will be fine. That said, I have no option to cover my set up today and will bear it, but if I had something I definitely would. Chill factor + condensation is very real and where it is all at for us.

Just thought I'd throw that out there. When dealing with winds, cold and Florida, blanket statements on temperature are not a good idea. I'm going to hang at light at each row end. When the plant is photosynthesizing dew will not condense in my experience I wish I had a light for all the plants, but the outer ones at the end of the tunnel get the highest wind.

I'm worried I'll be losing fruit set. I have at least 100 flowers that would have been set for pollination tomorrow, but I think this will be cold enough to ruin the pollen. Maybe a quick trip to Lowes for blossom set spray to use tomorrow...

The others have more experience when it comes to cold and what to do, but where I'm at the dew+wind is something I'm not sure fully translates from Florida.

One thing I will do is have is a gallon of nice irrigation water (about 65 F -68 F) gallons of irrigation water to slowly add plant by plant just as the weather starts warming about 9:15am to give them a good start. Since mine are in containers, that will help a lot. This one thing I know works from last winter if you have containers.

PC