How To Get A Longer Tomato Growing Season

Here we will be explaining how we add a few weeks to our growing season in the north. Also, by doing this, we get our tomatoes to market earlier than a lot of other farmers.

Identifying Hardiness Zone For Tomatoes

The hardiness zone we are located in is zones 5b/6a in Pennsylvania. Our plant date on which we are supposed to go in the ground is around May 15th. This year 2022 we had a few warm days in the 80s which heated the ground up. We started to plant on one of those 80 degree day which was April 23rd. This is 3 weeks before we are supposed to go into the ground. This is how we extend our tomato season and get to market early by planting early. We have also noticed here our climate is changing by our extended forecast. May 1st to May 15th the weather is in the 60s or higher during the day and nights are in the 40s and 50s.

Tomato Plant Survival From Frost

Since we planted 3 weeks early, we had chances of frost, which we did 5 days later. We got 3 days in a row April 28,29,and 30 where the night temperatures were from 27-30 degrees. How we beat the frost with some of our tomato plant s in the ground is that we used plastic and twine. But you have to make sure your ground is warm. The reason the ground has to be warm, this is what is going to help your tomato plants survive. Wether you have nice hot days or have to lay plastic down to heat up the ground a few days prior to planting.

Mini Greenhouses For Our Tomatoes

We built mini greenhouses for our tomato plants that were in the ground. We went to Lowes and bought our plastic in rolls of 100ft (ca. 30 meters) x 12ft (3.66 meters) and 4mil in thickness. Next, we used the bailing twine we get at rural king to tie between our t-posts to make the peak of our mini greenhouses. When we tie our peaks, they are about 2ft (0.61 meters) from the ground, and we tie 2 string to each side of the t-post. The reason for this is extra support for the peak, which you will have 4 strings in total for your peak. Then we go get our plastic and roll it out the length of our rows. We extend the plastic an extra 3ft (0.91 meters) on each end, so we make sure we have enough to seal up the ends. Next, we fold the plastic in half long ways and cut it. So now our plastic is 6ft (1.83 meters) wide. Now it takes 2 people to do this, we bring the plastic back over the row we are doing and drape it over the t-post. We then make sure it is even on both sides and push down over the t-post, which then slides down to your string peak.

Holding Your Mini Greenhouse Down

How we held down our mini tomato greenhouse from the wind was we used rocks. Anything heavy will keep the plastic down, but make sure you stretch the plastic sideways as much as you can. The reason for stretching the plastic because you do not want your plants touching the plastic. Also, you can add extra support from the wind by running another line across the peak above the plastic. This helps keep the plastic down, too.