My row cover is 10' wide. I use woven wire tomato cages that start out either 3' tall or 4' tall. Making them this short was a deliberate decision made in the early 2000s so I could cover them more easily during that month or so directly after planting time when the nights can turn surprisingly chilly. Back then, I used old sheets, bedspreads, etc. I like frost blankets so much more for so many reason. So, I transplant my tomato seedlings into the ground, hammer a stake into the ground beside each tomato, and loosely tie the young plant to the stake to help it grow up straight and so it won't lean first this way and then that way every time the wind blows. After an entire row is planted, I come back with tomato cages that are 3 or 4' tall, center one around each plant, and use two stakes to hold each cage in place.

When I am done, even with a double row of plants in a raised bed, I can walk down one aisle with the row cover, pinning the edges in place right up against the edge of the raised bed. Then, I walk around the bed and bring the row cover up the other side, pinning it down to the other side of the raised bed. Using a single, very long piece of frost blanket (the Dewitt Ultimate), I can cover the plants with one piece of row cover (just barely) if I use 3' tall cages.

Once the plants are nearing the top of the 3' tall cage, I use zip ties to attach another 3' or 4' tall cage to each original short cage. Bam! Just like that I have tall cages that are either 6' or 7' tall. If cold weather threatens after the tall cages are in place, it takes two pieces of row cover to cover the double row of taller cages. In that case I run one piece down each side, pinning them down. Then, I bring the tops of the two pieces together just above the top of the cages, using whatever I have to use to keep them together. Generally, I roll the two pieces together....as if I was rolling together the open ends of a potato chip bag in order to clip it shut. I use clothespins to hold the two rolled-down pieces together. If it is really windy, I might place two by four lumber on top of the cages to weigh down the fabric and keep the wind from whipping the row cover around so much that the clothes pins come off. It sounds like more work than it is. I've done it so many times that I have it down to a routine that is relatively quick and works well. I think that last year I only had to cover up the cages twice after the taller cages were in place. It was forecast to be exceptionally windy on one of those days so we used ropes and zip ties to help ensure the row cover would stay in place.

I go to a huge amount of trouble to get my tomato plants in the ground early, and to me, it is worth it. We can get insanely hot insanely early down here. In one of the worst tomato years I've ever had, we first hit the 90s around Easter, and the mid-90s in May. The earliest plants I had put into the ground in March gave us a great early crop, but the ones planted later in April barely had time to bloom and set any fruit at all before the heat shut them down. It also helps out with my canning schedule. I prefer to already be harvesting tomatoes, peppers, onion and garlic and making/canning salsa in late May or early June. That gives me a chance to do the major part of my tomato canning before we start hitting the upper 90s and the 100s. It also means I can squeeze in a lot of tomato-canning before the plums and peaches are ripe and need to be canned as well.

My low tunnel hoops are fine on all the other beds, but on the tomato beds we needed taller hoops. Technically we use the exact same hoops, but Tim makes them 'legs' of EMT so that the hoops can be 3, 4, 5 or even 7+ feet high to cover the caged tomato plants.

My average last frost date is March 28th, but if I put tomato plants in the ground that late or even a week or two after that, the plants won't give us ripe fruit until mid- or late-May. I am too much of a tomatoholic to wait one day longer than necessary for fresh tomatoes, and then there is the chance the heat arrives early and we don't get many tomatoes, or we don't get tomatoes until June or July. I used to try to wait for that last frost to come and go before I planted, but after it started happening later and later and later, I gave up waiting for the weather to cooperate and just started planting as soon as ground temperatures and air temperatures allow. Sometimes I put the first tomato plants into the ground in early March. Sometimes I do it in late March. Even with row cover I do wait until our air temperatures and soil temperatures are staying above 50 degrees most of the time.

The big frustration for me down here in southcentral OK is that often we are having really warm, even hot, days with mostly warm nights, but then one or two nights a week we drop much colder. You cannot plant early and just not worry about the prospect of a cold night, because 8 years out of 10 there's going to be plenty of ''late" cold nights, even when your soil temperatures are pretty warm. Having the frost blankets means the plants and I are well-prepared for the occasional late cold night. I am a much happier gardener knowing I have some control over how warm the plants will stay at night.