Tomatoes in a cold greenhouse
 

Despite the grotty cold weather my last couple of tomato plants seem to be
surviving in the cold greenhouse and they are still slowly ripening
tomatoes - presumably when the greenhouse warms up on sunny days.

I also have a few green tomatoes indoors in the warm in a plastic tub along
with ripe tomatoes and a ripe banana.

Strangely, the ones in the greenhouse seem to be doing better.

One of the plants is actually putting out side shoots, although neither
plant is flowering.

Has anyone ever overwintered tomato plants (or cuttings)?

It is the end of November now, and I see to recall that you start early
tomatoes in a heated greenhouse around February.

Perhaps I should bring in the side shoots and grow them as pot plants?

Cheers

Dave R

[Who has just found Knode on his EEE PC]

Tomatoes in a cold greenhouse
 

The message
from David W EEE Roberts contains these words:

Despite the grotty cold weather my last couple of tomato plants seem to be
surviving in the cold greenhouse and they are still slowly ripening
tomatoes - presumably when the greenhouse warms up on sunny days.

I also have a few green tomatoes indoors in the warm in a plastic tub along
with ripe tomatoes and a ripe banana.

Strangely, the ones in the greenhouse seem to be doing better.

One of the plants is actually putting out side shoots, although neither
plant is flowering.

Has anyone ever overwintered tomato plants (or cuttings)?

Yes, but IMO it's a waste of time as there's not enough of the right
kind of light. Tomato ripening is, as I understand it, triggered by
shortening days.

It is the end of November now, and I see to recall that you start early
tomatoes in a heated greenhouse around February.

Correct. Or earlier, indoors, for an unheated one.

Perhaps I should bring in the side shoots and grow them as pot plants?

Well, something to try - remove all shoots and skewer a hole in one eye
of a potato and poke a freshly-cut side-shoot into it, and plant it.

I did this a lot of years ago (20?) and had a useful but not spectacular
crop of spuds and a normal crop of tomatoes.

Something not to try... tomatoes grafted on belladonna root are
poisonous! (I have friends at the John Innes Centre who specialise in
Solanum and allied genera.)

Tomatoes in a cold greenhouse
 

"David W EEE Roberts" wrote in message
...
Despite the grotty cold weather my last couple of tomato plants seem to be
surviving in the cold greenhouse and they are still slowly ripening
tomatoes - presumably when the greenhouse warms up on sunny days.

I also have a few green tomatoes indoors in the warm in a plastic tub
along
with ripe tomatoes and a ripe banana.

Strangely, the ones in the greenhouse seem to be doing better.

One of the plants is actually putting out side shoots, although neither
plant is flowering.

Has anyone ever overwintered tomato plants (or cuttings)?

Dave.

Here in NZ I have had tomatos in an unheated polytunnel until the end of
July (end of Jan for you). The late green tomatos ripened (most of them)
quite well in paper bags along with a banana. The falvour wasn't great mind
(not too juicy) but they went ok on Pizza.

rob

Tomatoes in a cold greenhouse
 

HI David

David W EEE Roberts wrote:
Despite the grotty cold weather my last couple of tomato plants seem to be
surviving in the cold greenhouse and they are still slowly ripening
tomatoes - presumably when the greenhouse warms up on sunny days.

I also have a few green tomatoes indoors in the warm in a plastic tub along
with ripe tomatoes and a ripe banana.

Strangely, the ones in the greenhouse seem to be doing better.

One of the plants is actually putting out side shoots, although neither
plant is flowering.

Has anyone ever overwintered tomato plants (or cuttings)?

It is the end of November now, and I see to recall that you start early
tomatoes in a heated greenhouse around February.

Perhaps I should bring in the side shoots and grow them as pot plants?


We're in the far south-west of Co Cork, Ireland - so not generally
subject to frosts (although this past week has been an exception g)!

Last year I potted up some tomato cuttings and overwintered them in our
sun-room (frost free, and quite warm on sunny days)

I planted them out in the polytunnel again in late January (at this time
they were about 2ft tall). At the same time, I started some more plants
from seed, first in the propogator and then pricked out into 3" pots in
the sunroom. Having accidentally dropped the tray containing the
seedlings (!!) - I also re-sowed more seed in mid Feb. All young plants
were planted out into the tunnel in March - April.

In the end, there was little difference in cropping times or plant size
between the overwintered cuttings and the new plants..... so (in my
experience) there's not much point in overwintering.

Mum & Dad who lived in Cornwall always used to plant their tomato seeds
on New Year's Day - but I guess it all depends on how warm it'll be in
your greenhouse at the time when you want to plant out your tomatoes...

We took that last of this year's tomato plants out last week - some with
ripened fruit on them...

Don't know if this helps ?? g
Adrian

[QUOTE
David W EEE Roberts wrote:[color=blue][i]
Despite the grotty cold weather my last couple of tomato plants seem to be
surviving in the cold greenhouse and they are still slowly ripening
tomatoes - presumably when the greenhouse warms up on sunny days.


Has anyone ever overwintered tomato plants (or cuttings)?



[/quote]

There has been a long discution about this on:
but as it tends to be an USA dominated site it's not particular relevant to here, but some there do but with lots of light and heat. Not economic by the sound of it, much cheaper to buy what you need.