Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

How many days before first frost do you top off tomatoes? george, living man, close to worcester

George & Group:

The general rule is to stop feeding and remove the growing tip on tomatoes 8 weeks before a killing frost. That date is never known 8 weeks ahead of time, but you can go by the average date.

Better than depending on uncertain weather, I recommend you prepare to PROTECT your tomato plants by covering the T-Frames with arched PVC and greenhouse plastic (see the last few pages of The Mittleider Gardening Course book - www.growfood.com/shop), and applying a little heat on nights producing a hard frost. That way you can extend your harvest by several weeks!

If you protect your plants in this way you also extend the time of feeding and allowing the growing tip to continue producing new tomatoes.

As an example, if the first hard frost was expected 10/15 and I had protection in place - I call this an in-the-garden greenhouse - I would expect to keep my plants alive until November 20-30, and so I would feed until the end of September, and I would remove the growing tips at this time also.

Jim Kennard

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