My Tomato winter project experiment

8 years ago

Hey all,

I have been working on a tomato project since November trying to get a live plant shipped (did that) making sure it survived its 5 day journey and it did that the rest you can see at this link. Here you can see the details on the progress Continued from the Garden forum So check that link out and I am contiuing here since there seems to be little interest in general forum (I should of posted it here to start).

Anyway here is my Early girl planted late January surrving temps in the low teens a few snow storms and everything all by running on batteries surounded by mylar/cardboard and bubble wrap with a bit of Duct tape and used on a Ogrow Frame pop up greenhouse (slightly modified) lol. Here are the latest photos. So far have a few buds. and at the coldest temp of 13 F I managed to keep the inside 55-60F at night and in the mid to high 70s durring the day.

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Comments (4)

User
8 years ago
Looks like a fun experiment. Will you plant outside eventually? Just wondering why "early girl" which I think is kind of a mediocre tomato?
thebutcher
Original Author
8 years ago
Yeah its a fun project, gives me something to look forward too. Luckily it survived the Noreaster we just had. I just brought it in the house (since i could not recharge). We had no electricity for 2 days But on the bright side I had half of them already charged and used them as a source of electricity in the house to charge phones and have lights. I put the plant back in today so I don't think there was any damage to it. There is another possible Noreaster midweek.

I choose the early girl because that was the only one available for live shipping across the country. Also I got a big boy, but the early girls seemed to do better under my grow light inside while getting the best one ready to go out. So basically I got 5-6 small live plants from California for about $15 combined. I would of grew from seed but I was too far into the project since my original Brandy Boy that was suposed to be the one did not make it with out the modifications to it.

For the summer I will plant a a few Brandyboys, Cherokee purples, 2 early girls and some others. For that one in there, all I have to do is lift the greenhouse up over the plant and it is ready just like any other but mature. I will gradually take the panels off one by one when it warms up. the door off, then roof roof and let it sit like a regular greenhouse but still with heat when needed. Also another possitive is that when it gets warmer, I will have all those batteries to use in the house in case power goes out :)
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User
8 years ago
I have a friend who has been growing tomatoes for decades and she puts "early girl" at the top of her list... Have fun with your experiment and let us know what happens.
thebutcher
Original Author
8 years ago
It survived 2 (1) day long power outages 3-4 major snow storms one with about 20 inches and temps from 5 degrees to about 25 degrees night temps for the majority of February and March. It started to produce small tomatoes in late April then brought it out in late April and here it is about week ago. Would I do it Again? Probably no but it did get me in shape and was fun trying to make it work out. Plus it has a great head start now and showing signs of new growth from the bottom up. :)