Thanks. I do have Solomon's book. However, given the late terrible
weather, it wouldn't have been much help. I started these plants indoors in
March and they are a good 18 inches tall when I moved them to a hoop house
in April and by the time I removed the hoop house just after the first of
May, they were mostly around two feet tall, many with lots of tomatoes.

The whole scene is pretty depressing. I am tempted to simply tear out some
of the harder hit plants and replace them with store bought starts. My
girlfriend (who helped me nurse these babies along) won't have any of it,
more out of principal than anything else. My easiest solution right now is
to increase the size of the garden to fit the new starts (I will have home
grown tomatoes this year damnit).

Next year I won't start my seeds until April 1 and won't move them out until
the middle of may into the hoop house (which won't come down until june).

This seems to have been an unusually cold spring in the PNW.

Again, thanks for the help.

Jay

"Kay Lancaster" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 May 2003 15:13:09 GMT, homer wrote:

What should I do at this point? Should I just leave them and see what
happens? Should I prune off the dead leaves and branches? Is it
hopeless
(i.e. are frost damaged plants so handicapped that I should start over
with
nursery starts)?

Dead material should be removed. If they were 4" starts, and not many
of those, I'd be inclined to replant (I'm just S of you, about halfway
to Salem). I've got some that would be in 3 gallon cans if they were
potted, and those I'd probably just remove dead leaves from -- but I'd
had enough warning that I had cuddled them up under sheets with
gallon bottles of warm water. Last week's hail was harder on them
than the frost.

If you don't have a copy of the excellent book Growing Vegetables West
of the Cascades (Steve Solomon), hit the library... the section on
tomato growing in this climate is particularly useful.

Kay Lancaster