Covering Tomatoes with Plastic ?
Wilf Rosenbaum
I live in the Vancouver, Canada region. We have a mild climate, but one
that makes tomatoes particularly susceptible to blight, and in fact last
year I did lose all of my plants. This year I am planting only in
containers, and each plant is supported by a tomato cage. A friend of
mine suggested inverting a clear plastic garbage bag over each
pot-plant-cage unit, for the purpose of keeping in the heat. Although
he claims he has had good success with this "mini-greenhouse" approach,
I am a little unsure about it. I can see possible advantages: keeping
the plants warmer, keeping out insect pests, keeping out the rain.
But I can also see possible disadvantages: overheating the plants,
keeping out bees, making it a hassle to water.
So does anybody have any advice about this technique? Any experiences,
comments or suggetions are welcome. I guess my major concern would be
that the plants would be isolated from the bees, but I guess I'm not
sure that tomatoes actually need to be pollinated by insects.
Anyhow, many thanks for reading this far.
--
Dr. Wilfred Rosenbaum Medical Imaging Laboratory
ro...@sfu.ca Simon Fraser University
Cloud Dreamer
put 1/3 of my tomatoes in the ground late in May with cages.
Then I put a clear plastic bag over them. We had temperatures
below zero on several occasions in that period as late as 12 June
but the plants survived okay.
There was some yellowing, lost leaves especially from ones I
exposed earlier than others but they are recovering. I found
they don't like sudden exposure to sunlight after seeing the sun
only through plastic, so I gradually exposed the plants to sun by
removing the top portion of the plastic as the temperature rose.
I also found that the plastic protected the young plants from
several days of very high winds. Now that the temperatures are
hovering around 20 I have cut the plastic back and think I'll
remove them completely in a couple weeks. Gradually removing the
plastic keeps them from overheating as well.
For tomatoes I put in only two weeks ago I just cut up a large
clear plastic drop cloth into strips and wrapped it around the
bottom portion of the cage so that the plant was protected from
those winds and the few cool nights that were lingering - but
they had enough exposure to the sun so that there has been no
wilting at all.
One thing that I have discovered is that the tomatoes are not as
delicate as one might think. Frost will kill them but with that
plastic one plant I put out in early May is doing fine despite
several nights of -2 temps.
I have about 40 plants out (35 in ground and 5 in containers as
well as two indoors) and by the Fall I'll have an idea of how I
will do it next year. Experimentation is interesting and
enjoyable. Good luck.
.
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Zaphod & Trillian
the tomatoes or they get blight from the rain. Zaphod built a
frame of PVC pipe that we cover with plastic and put over them.
When we water, we use a soaker hose and the ground is all that
gets wet- the tomato plants should not get wet. I have never
tried putting plastic bags over them, but I have seen quite
a few shelters of plastic built over tomatoes here.
Razeredz
me. Worth a try for the yummy taste. Rita
Scott R.
come off long before you have blossoms. You only need to keep in the
heat in the spring when the temps are not high enough yet.
Scott R.
PA zone 6
A. Kantola
cloche approach very successfully for the past few years. Get great
tomatoes and peppers, and don't lose them to blight.
I have noticed, though, that the leaves of the tomatoes don't appear
particularly happy to be in contact with the plastic, which makes me
wonder if the "mini greenhouse" of a clear plastic bag over the wire cage
will work well at all, at least when the plants start outgrowing the
cage. My suggestion to the original poster is: why not do the experiment?
Cover half your tomatoes with plastic bags, and leave the other half
uncovered, see how it goes....
Good luck!
Angie
Bob Marshall
different. We grow the tomatoes in raised beds and for the
last few years cover the bed under and around the plants
with red plastic sheet (from Territorial Seeds, in their
catalogue) by spreading the sheet out and cutting an X where
we want to put in the plant. We used always to get blight;
now we no longer do. Evidently the blight is not in the
rain, but in the soil and splashes up on the plant with the
rain. I'm not sure I understand the physics of the RED
color's contribution to the whole.
This year for the first time we tried Wall 'o Water (3
for $10 at a seed store in town). We started with four
tomato plants in the red plastic and put WoW around three of
them (since we only bought one package to see how WoW would
do). Last week we took off the WoW's from the plants and
put cages around them. The three in the WoW's were easily
three to four times bigger than the one left out, which is
still a large and attractive blight free plant, even after
all the rain we've had this June. I'm completely converted
to WoW. We even bought a few more packages of WoW for the
squash and for the cucumbers about a month ago. Just
stunning results. Now if I only had some way to rid the
beans of weevils!
On 27 Jun 2000 22:31:10 GMT, kan...@u.washington.edu (A.
Kantola) wrote:
Bob Marshall
Bellingham, WA
USDA 8, Sunset 4