I have several tomato vines in full production right now. Around the border of zone 7b-8a. My first frost date is coming soon and I'm wondering if anyone has tips to save as many as I can. Better boy, Berkley tie dye, black beauty, black strawberry, and Alice's dream. I fought with stinkbugs and hornworms for the first half of the season(my first year growing) id really like to save more.
by Acrobatic_Visual_162
2 Comments
If you have dark weed cloth you can put it down at the base so the soil stays warmer longer, and then build a ‘cloche’ out of clear tarp so the fruit itself keeps ripening. But at a certain point, Mother Nature always wins.
You said your first frost date is coming up. There are some things you can do to protect them from a night of an early frost, but the first frost is often followed by a second, and third, etc. If this is the case your season is basically done. And even if it doesn’t freeze, once nighttime temps are consistently below about 45⁰ the fruit often won’t ripen. At this point you can pick the remaining fruit and bring them inside to ripen. I still have a couple inside on my window sill and I pulled my plants a month ago.