Pat Meadows wrote:

On Tue, 11 Feb 2003 14:05:41 GMT, "Penny Morgan"
wrote:


Yes, tomatoes will pretty much just sit in cold soil and not actively grow.
If you want to plant them in the cooler soil, try mulching or covering the
soil below the plants with a dark weedblock material. Black or red works
well. It must be something that allows water to penetrate (not a solid
plastic). The dark color will heat up during daylight hours from the sun
and retain the heat longer for the soil and roots to be happy. Some people
also buy water walls (not sure if that's technically the name or not). They
are made of some type of clear plastic that you fill up with water. You
then wrap this or stand it up around each tomato plant to insulate from the
cold. To me, they seem like too much work to get a couple of weeks jump on
the season.

I've used them (last year) and I intend to use them again -
in fact, as long as I live here where the season is short
and nights are cool (northern PA in the Appalachian
Mountains). They're no particular work.

You plant your tomatoes as usual. You fill the WalloWater
with a hose and drop it over the tomato plant. Done.

Then later on when your tomatoes are large and have filled
the WalloWater, you lift it out and put it away for the next
year.

http://www.wallowater.com

The pictures on the website are really poor - they don't
show them very well at all.

These now come in red as well (from a different company, I
think) - the red is supposed in some way to help the plants
grow. I don't know if it does or not.

Pat

4 or 5 plastic soda bottles filled with water also work. On "The
Victory Garden" I remember them putting plastic around the cages.
Opened them up during the day when the weather starts warming up.


--
Susan N.
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