Hoop House Monitor

[digitS']

Erk, did you see our forecasted lows for tonight and tomorrow? 30*!! i guess we'll be hauling everything in and spreading it out on the dining room table.

It is not supposed to be 30º here right now, Heather. Officially, whatever that means, it looks like it will be 37º.

However, there is frost on the shed roof. It's 45º inside, .

I can open the window from the outside on the hoop house over the garden beds. The fan is set on low and the heater is on medium (so not using all the 1250watts on that thing). Twenty feet away, I can feel the warmth moving my way! Those fans make a big, big difference. You know with plastic film, an infrared camera would show a warm spot about 4' wide directly above the heater without the fan.

Steve

 

[NwMtGardener]

Well we brought the plants in, but probably wouldnt have had to, it only got down to 38 inside the GH. Ahh well, better safe than sorry!

 

[digitS']

Remember Lavender's 43º , tho'

I had all these damaged tomato plants about 5 years ago. There were about 4 that completely died sitting right beside my remote thermometer that said 37º .

It was a horrible scene with dozens of wilting plants all over an unheated hoop house. Their first night outside the 60º heated greenhouse. I gave away many of those plants and the person who took them said they'd come back. They did but what a set-back!

Strangely, the dead ones beside that thermometer were Bloody Butcher. Best suited for setting fruit and 1st ripening in my garden! They could not take that sudden change to 37º better than any of the others!

Steve

 

[digitS']

Guess what I did last night. Actually, it is what I didn't do.

I forgot to turn on the greenhouse furnace.

Nothing in there has ever been cooler than 60°f! Everything is fine. However, some of the eggplant had folded leaves for half the day. It was like they were praying, "please don't do that again!"

Oh. The wimps were tuffing it out at 50° when I checked on them about 6am. The basil didn't bother to complain. . .

Steve

 

[Smart Red]

Yeah! That means you got a good night's sleep?

 

[digitS']

I've been doing okay with the overnights the last few nights. Predictions for th 40's prompts this sense of calm that is difficult to describe.

Tomorrow's forecast is for 39°. I will need to check things right away in the morning. The heating system is enstalled and ready to go!

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Strangely, the dead ones beside that thermometer were Bloody Butcher. Best suited for setting fruit and 1st ripening in my garden! They could not take that sudden change to 37º better than any of the others!

Steve

I went to the Farmer's Market today. It was cold and I was picking out tomato plants and saw some that looked a little droopy compared to all the rest. I checked and they were Bloody Butcher. I remembered what you said about yours, so I bought 2 of them. I thought they do not like the cold and that was why they were drooping. The only other thing I saw drooping that these people had were eggplant.

 

[digitS']

I remember that @thistlebloom didn't find them so remarkable but I have always liked Bloody Butcher. You will have to decide for yourself about the flavor, @Gardening with Rabbits . Most of the real early tomatoes have so little flavor they seem hardly worth bothering with.

The attempt I've made to replace Early Girl hasn't been all that much fun for me. Bland varieties are out there. Little Bloody Butcher isn't one of them. It's probably only its size that keeps it from being more popular.

Earliness just doesn't equal cold tolerance. Early maturity, setting fruit in the cool weather, quick ripening. A tomato plant tough enuf to shrug off a frost? My understanding is that the home of the Wild Tomato doesn't place those kinds of demands on it. Where's our humanity?

Steve

 

[NwMtGardener]

We're still hauling plants in and out...the nights have been "iffy" and i just decided not to chance it, since they're looking so good. We've even had snow forecasted, but so far its only been rain right here in the valley - but i've seen cars driving around in the AM with fresh snow from higher elevations.

I have to say I'm excited about the new-to-me variety Northern Exposure. The seeds HPQ sent me jumped up out of the soil before any others, and they're bigger and stronger looking than any other variety. The "Giant Tomato Tree" is growing great too, but i dont know how long that may take to yield a mature fruit so we'll see if they can manage that in our short growing season.

 

[Smart Red]

Wish me luck, today's the day I put my tomato seedlings into the garden -- at least most of them. I am still waiting for a second planting attempt at Black Sea Man to pop up and one other variety failed to appear but those were my last two seeds. That makes 54 plants so far of 15-ish varieties.

Some of my flower beds are not quite ready for tomatoes yet. I tend to spread them outside the garden in extra spots here and there to prevent over-crowding. Hoping for lots more sunny warm weather here in south-est, central-est Wisconsin.