we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my tomatoes
are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas, other than
tossing sheets over them at night, to get them through to
ripening.
anyone have or seen plans for some type of temporary hoop
house structure i could build over the rows? the extra heat
from a hoop house should help speed the ripening process, i
think, besides keeping frost off at night.
lee

--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.

enigma wrote:
we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my tomatoes
are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas, other than
tossing sheets over them at night, to get them through to
ripening.
anyone have or seen plans for some type of temporary hoop
house structure i could build over the rows? the extra heat
from a hoop house should help speed the ripening process, i
think, besides keeping frost off at night.
lee


There are plans and kits online available for the searching. This example:

http://westsidegardener.com/howto/hoophouse.html

could probably be scaled down quite easily to suit your purposes.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my tomatoes
are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas, other than
tossing sheets over them at night, to get them through to
ripening.
anyone have or seen plans for some type of temporary hoop
house structure i could build over the rows? the extra heat
from a hoop house should help speed the ripening process, i
think, besides keeping frost off at night.
lee



I've not tried it - but heard that if you pull the plant out - roots
and all - and hang it upside down, indoors, the fruit will ripen just
fine.
jt

hubops wrote in
:

I've not tried it - but heard that if you pull the plant
out - roots
and all - and hang it upside down, indoors, the fruit will
ripen just fine.

that does work if the fruit is well along to ripening.
unfortunately we had a wet & chilly summer, so the tomatoes
sulked until mid-August. if this were August rather than
September, i'd be really happy with how they're doing. i just
need another warm month...
lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.

"enigma" wrote in message
we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my tomatoes
are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas, other than
tossing sheets over them at night, to get them through to
ripening.

Do you have acess to hay bales? I've surrounded things with hay bales
leaving it open on the sunny side and throwing a sheet of plastic over it
which is lifted up on the sunny side during the day to stop the plant
cooking.

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in

..au:

"enigma" wrote in message
we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my
tomatoes are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas,
other than tossing sheets over them at night, to get them
through to ripening.

Do you have acess to hay bales? I've surrounded things
with hay bales leaving it open on the sunny side and
throwing a sheet of plastic over it which is lifted up on
the sunny side during the day to stop the plant cooking.

i have access... but, mulch hay (hay that has been wet or
otherwise unsuitable for feed) is US$6/bale. straw is around
$9/bale.
i have a preorder in for my winter hay (@250bales), which i
fortunately get a large discount for because i always buy from
him, but i can't take delivery until the arse that's supposed
to be building my barn (& i haven't seen since February) fixes
the damned roof leak... and pours the floor, puts in the
stairs to the loft & fixes the warped doors (anyone in New
England, avoid Dream Barns!)
i suppose i could have my hay delivered & use the stuff that
gets ruined from the leaks... but that hardly seems cost
effective
i strogly suspect that PVC pipes for a hoop house is cheaper
than mulch hay around here.
lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.

On Sep 20, 9:18�am, enigma wrote:
we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my tomatoes
are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas, other than
tossing sheets over them at night, to get them through to
ripening.
�anyone have or seen plans for some type of temporary hoop
house structure i could build over the rows? the extra heat
from a hoop house should help speed the ripening process, i
think, besides keeping frost off at night.

I pound a metal fence post in at each end of a row and stretch a
clothesline across for draping cheap plastic painter's drop cloths...
I use the same system for erecting netting over my blueberries. It
helps to attach a small eyebolt to the top of each fence post. If
your runs are long just add more fence posts. I've found ordinary
cheap cotton clothesline will span about 20 feet with very little sag,
or use any inexpensive line, polypropylene works too. All very
inexpensive materials, erects and tears down easy and fast, reusable,
and easy to store.

In article ,
enigma wrote:

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in

.au:

"enigma" wrote in message
we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my
tomatoes are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas,
other than tossing sheets over them at night, to get them
through to ripening.

Do you have acess to hay bales? I've surrounded things
with hay bales leaving it open on the sunny side and
throwing a sheet of plastic over it which is lifted up on
the sunny side during the day to stop the plant cooking.

i have access... but, mulch hay (hay that has been wet or
otherwise unsuitable for feed) is US$6/bale. straw is around
$9/bale.
i have a preorder in for my winter hay (@250bales), which i
fortunately get a large discount for because i always buy from
him, but i can't take delivery until the arse that's supposed
to be building my barn (& i haven't seen since February) fixes
the damned roof leak... and pours the floor, puts in the
stairs to the loft & fixes the warped doors (anyone in New
England, avoid Dream Barns!)
i suppose i could have my hay delivered & use the stuff that
gets ruined from the leaks... but that hardly seems cost
effective
i strogly suspect that PVC pipes for a hoop house is cheaper
than mulch hay around here.
lee

From a conversation with "simy1"
"simy1"wrote:
Billy,

With your 100' x 12' vinyl, you get a tunnel, that, in a perfect world,
can be no more than 3.82' tall, with a width of 7.64', right?
Practically, what is it? What grade and o.d. PVC pipe do you use for the
hoops? How many and what kind of clamps do you use, and where have you
found it most advantageous to place them? Double clamps? What's that?
Any special fold in the vinyl to seal the tunnel? What important
question didn't I ask?

Yes, the tunnels are low enough that you can crawl under. The beds are
about 25 ft long, and 4ft wide, so one sheet, cut into three, covers
them all with a few feet of waste. You need the sheets to be several
feet longer than the beds to tuck the ends properly.

You buy the PVC pipes at Home Depot that are, from memory, 3/4" thick.
You also buy the 100X12 rolls of clear plastic from the Paint section.
I prefer 4mils, but 6 or even 2 will usually do (I have tried all
three). The PVC pipes are 12 ft long. You cut them at an angle at the
tips, bend them, and stick them one foot into the ground on either
side. Total hoop length: 10 feet.

You can either put a hoop every four feet, which makes it a bit
difficult to maneuver a wheelbarrow, or every 7 feet, like I do, and
them put an extra pipe on top of the hoops for extra strength, secured
to the hoops with cable ties and a screw to avoid slipping. The top
pipes are connected to one another with PVC cement and a connector,
exactly as if you were building your plumbing.

Once you have all the hoops in place, and I leave them there, summer
and winter, you garden the beds normally until it is time to cover
them. The clamps can be found at Territorial Seeds and are half
cylinder that clamp onto the pipes tigthly, grabbing the plastic. They
are excellent. The one foot of plastic on either side (12-10=2) can be
held down with bricks. The ends, too, can be held down with bricks. The
secret to keep the tunnels going in windy weather is to make sure as
little air as possible comes in. Specially the ends, I put down a
continuous line of bricks to eliminate air leaks. If there is snow on
the ground, no air comes in and the seal is perfect.

The plastic I am suggesting is not UV-treated and is not indicated for
summer use. In my case, I use it for about 3-4 years, and typically I
toss it due to various mechanical tears, like when I try to get ice off
of it. There is negligible UV degradation in the winter. I cover on the
Thanksgiving weekend and uncover on April 1.

Hope this helps )
--

Billy
Bush and Pelosi Behind Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1016232.html

yup. especially cherry tomatoes. Ingrid

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:22:27 -0400, hubops wrote:
I've not tried it - but heard that if you pull the plant out - roots
and all - and hang it upside down, indoors, the fruit will ripen just
fine.
jt

how about floating row covers? with a heater underneath?

An outside the box solution is to harvest them green and enjoy them that
way. Green tomatoes are yummy! Slice them up and fry them in olive oil --
mmmm. Or boil them and puree them into soup.

No matter how long and warm the summer there always seem to be a bunch of
green ones that aren't going to ripen before the first frost. I used to
write these off every year, but last year I thought, "Hey -- wasn't there a
movie called 'Fried Green Tomatoes'?" So I went online looking for green
tomato recipes. There are loads of them! I had never had a green tomato
before -- I can't believe I was missing such a treat for all those years.
They don't taste anything like ripe tomatoes -- they have a flavor all their
own.

Utopia in Decay
http://home.comcast.net/~kevin.cherkauer/site

Kevin Cherkauer


"enigma" wrote:
we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my tomatoes
are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas, other than
tossing sheets over them at night, to get them through to
ripening.

Kevin Cherkauer wrote:
An outside the box solution is to harvest them green and enjoy them that
way. Green tomatoes are yummy! Slice them up and fry them in olive oil --
mmmm. Or boil them and puree them into soup.

No matter how long and warm the summer there always seem to be a bunch of
green ones that aren't going to ripen before the first frost. I used to
write these off every year, but last year I thought, "Hey -- wasn't there a
movie called 'Fried Green Tomatoes'?" So I went online looking for green
tomato recipes. There are loads of them! I had never had a green tomato
before -- I can't believe I was missing such a treat for all those years.
They don't taste anything like ripe tomatoes -- they have a flavor all their
own.

Utopia in Decay
http://home.comcast.net/~kevin.cherkauer/site

Kevin Cherkauer


"enigma" wrote:

we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my tomatoes
are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas, other than
tossing sheets over them at night, to get them through to
ripening.



They are also good in chutney.

"Kevin Cherkauer" wrote:

No matter how long and warm the summer there always seem to be a bunch of
green ones that aren't going to ripen before the first frost.

This is true... folks who grow tomatoes would realize this... there
are many crops that are not ripened at the end of the growing season,
there are many ways to prepare unripened veggies.

Before frying it's best to dredge green tomato slices in seasoned
cornmeal. Green tomatoes are also great for pickling. There are many
recipes but I prefer just salt brine, no vinegar.

http://www.eco-natural.com/recipes/pickles.html

Kosher salt works fine... choose tomatoes of about the same size.

I used to
write these off every year, but last year I thought, "Hey -- wasn't there a
movie called 'Fried Green Tomatoes'?" So I went online looking for green
tomato recipes. There are loads of them! I had never had a green tomato
before -- I can't believe I was missing such a treat for all those years.
They don't taste anything like ripe tomatoes -- they have a flavor all their
own.


"enigma" wrote:
we are getting close to freezing at night now, & my tomatoes
are still quite green. i'm looking for ideas, other than
tossing sheets over them at night, to get them through to
ripening

I've begin ordinary cheap affection clothesline will amount about 20 anxiety with actual little sag, or use any bargain line, polypropylene works too. All very inexpensive materials, erects and tears down simple and fast, reusable, and simple to store.